Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU) Faculty of Tourism, Tourism and Hotel Management Program graduate Murat Ozcelik came first in the Turkey leg of the "Wiki Loves Earth” photography contest organised by world-famous Internet Wikipedia every year. Ozcelik managed to obtain the first place in the said competition with his photo capturing “Eber Lake” in 2017. A total of 106,240 photographs from 34 countries have been submitted to the 8th Wiki Loves Earth Photo Contest this year. Each country chose the best 10 photos from among the photos submitted after the evaluation of its own jury. In the Turkey stage of the contest, a total of 3,649 photo entries were evaluated by jury members Cem Bayoglu, Hakan Tokuc and Nevit Dilmen and Murat Özçelik have been found eligible to compete in the international final phase of the said contest.
Turkey Competing in the Contest for the First Time
Wikimedia, a global movement whose name is similar to Wikipedia, aims to provide free educational content to the world. Wikimedia’s non-profit organizations operate in all countries. With the help of local Wikimedia organizations around the world, the results of the international final leg of the Wiki Loves Earth Photo Contest, which is taking place for the 8th time this year, are expected to be announced in November 2020. As part of the contest, the participants take photos of local natural heritage sites in their region and upload them to "Wikimedia Commons", which is the repository of free content images, audio and other multimedia files on Wikimedia. The event aims to encourage participants to take photos of these regions and license them for free re-use not only on Wikipedia, but everywhere and by anyone, and highlight the natural heritage sites of participating countries. Turkey is participating for the first time this year after the Wikimedia User Group’s organisation of the competition in Turkey.
Who is Murat Özçelik?
He was born on 12 April 1976 in Emirdağ district of Afyon. He completed his primary education in Afyon and his secondary education in Eskişehir. Afterwards, he completed the Tourism and Hotel Management Undergraduate Program at EMU. After working in the tourism sector for a long time, he started to work in the field of foreign trade in 2002. He is still dealing with foreign trade in his company located in Afyon. His interest in photography, which started during the middle school years, surfaced again in 2010 after a long break. Even though he has worked on macro, ornitho and landscape from time to time, he states that he enjoys capturing photographs of people, streets and 'that moment'. He adds “What happened during the shooting, the story of each frame, the emotion of each frame add a different flavor to the photograph. It is very valuable to work with and understand people in photography ... ”.
Founding President of AFFD 1st Afyon Phrygian Photography Association established in January 2014 and current Chair of the Board, Murat Özçelik was awarded the titles of AFIAP in 2014 and EFIAP in 2015 by FIAP. He opened his first personal exhibition "Human Portraits from My Country" in Afyon in September 2014. The same exhibition was exhibited in Konya in 2014 and Trabzon in 2016. Özçelik took part in many group exhibitions. He made photo presentations and talks in associations and photography communities. He received awards in many national and international photo contests. He works as an instructor in "Basic Photography Training", "Portrait" and "Documentary" photography workshops within the AFFD 1 Afyon Frig Photography Association.