By Heidi Trautmann

Have you been to the exhibition which opened on March 28? If not, you have missed something. There were 48 colour photographs by 24 artists and 36 black and white by 19 artists chosen by the jury to be displayed with the prize winning works marked out of altogether 543 entries submitted by 78 participants. The exhibition was opened by his daughter Buket Özatay. The President of the TRNC Mr Dervis Eroglu congratulated the winners who were Nafia Akdeniz in the category ‘colour photographs’ and Mehmet Gökyigit in the black and white category with his photo ‘No digital’; special awards were given to Bariş Saydam, Lisani Otağ, Mustafa Evirgen and M. Tevfik.

The jury – Sabit Kalfagil, Emre Ikizler, Ümit Inatçı, Senih Çavuşoğlu and Eda Eminağa Başbuğ - had a hard task to choose from the many beautiful competition works.

The three children of Öztan Özatay who had served Turkish Cypriot photography for all his life and died much too young, Buket, Özfer and Özhan, are continuing what their father has started and in his memory they want to continue to keep the competition alive and support the art of photography.