Nilüfer Demir (born 1986) is a Turkish photojournalist based in

Bodrum Bodrum () is a port city in Muğla Province, southwestern Turkey, at the entrance to the Gulf of Gökova. Its population was 35,795 at the 2012 census, with a total of 136,317 inhabitants residing within the district's borders. Known in ancient t ...

, Turkey. She has worked with the

Doğan News Agency Doğan is both a masculine Turkish given name and a Turkish surname meaning ''Falcon''. Notable people with the name include: Given name * Doğan Abukay, Turkish experimental physicist and academic * Doğan Akhanlı (1957–2021) Turkish-German wr ...

since she was a teenager. She covered the European migrant crisis during the summer of 2015, and her photographs of

Alan Kurdi Alan Kurdi (born as Alan Shenu), initially reported as Aylan Kurdi, was a two-year-old Syrian boy (initially reported as having been three years old) of Kurdish ethnic background whose image made global headlines after he drowned on 2 September 20 ...

became world news on 2 September 2015. She came across the body of Kurdi on the beach and took a number of photos.

Photo of dead toddler

She said that she felt "petrified" upon seeing the corpse of the toddler. Then she took the pictures to share her feelings. Demir's photograph of Kurdi has been compared with iconic photos that changed the world. Her photograph accompanied by

hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash (also known as pound or octothorpe) sign, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter or Instagram as a form of user-generated ...

"KiyiyaVuranInsanlik" (English: humanity washed ashore) became the top trending topic on Twitter. In March 2016 her photograph was the subject of a Dutch documentary about iconic photos, and specifically why this photo was not selected for the World Press Photo, though it had resulted in many different reactions across Europe that changed the attitude of many people about the European migrant crisis.Een Zee van Beelden
(English: A Sea of Images), 09 maart 2016, by Misja Pekel and Maud van de Reijt, Argos TV – Medialogica The winning World Press photo of 2015 showed a child migrant that successfully crossed into Europe and thus communicated hope rather than despair.

Other photos by Demir of Alan Kurdi

Demir took a series of photos, though it was the one initially retweeted on Twitter that is considered to have had the most international impact.Analysis of the viral impact of the photo of Aylan Kurdi on Social Media
by researchers led by Dr Farida Vis of University of Sheffield's Visual Social Media Lab, 14 December 2015 (retrieved 13 March 2016) This is also the image chosen by Dutch newspaper

Trouw ''Trouw'' (; ) is a Dutch daily newspaper appearing in compact size. It was founded in 1943 as an orthodox Protestant underground newspaper during World War II. Since 2009, it has been owned by DPG Media (known as De Persgroep until 2019). ''Tr ...

for their front page on 3 September 2015 after a female journalist published it on their website in the evening of 2 September 2015. Though the initially retweeted image carried the highest emotional impact, the one most commonly chosen became a photo of the toddler seen from the side, with an aid worker approaching from the right.

Photo of Alan Kurdi seen from the side

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Mar ...

selected this image also for its "Top 100 Photos of 2015". Time published an update on Demir's photo of the boy seen from the side in a one-year anniversary update on their choice of this aid-worker photo, mentioning that it was also shared on social media "by thousands of people"

Photo of Alan Kurdi in the arms of an aid worker

Other news agencies decided to select other photos of the same dead toddler with a rescue worker in the image, such as one with the lifeless corpse in the arms of an aid worker.

Art inspired by Demir's photos

The photo of Alan Kurdi seen from the side, which partially shows the child's face, was re-used later on 6 January 2016 for a comic by

Charlie Hebdo ''Charlie Hebdo'' (; meaning ''Charlie Weekly'') is a French satirical weekly magazine, featuring cartoons, reports, polemics, and jokes. Stridently non-conformist in tone, the publication has been described as Anti-racism, anti-racist, sceptica ...

referring to the New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany for their anniversary edition commemorating the Charlie Hebdo shooting, which sparked a "racism debate". Later that month Chinese artist Ai Weiwei posed on the beach in a recreation of the position of the toddler's corpse at the time of the photographs. In March 2016 graffiti artists in Germany made an artistic political statement across from the headquarters of the

European Central Bank The European Central Bank (ECB) is the prime component of the monetary Eurosystem and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) as well as one of seven institutions of the European Union. It is one of the world's Big Four (banking)#Intern ...

(ECB) titled "Europa tot – Der Tod und das Geld", following these political artworks in January. In 2018, the fourth novel by

Khaled Hosseini Khaled Hosseini (;Pashto/Dari ; born March 4, 1965) is an Afghan Americans, Afghan-American novelist, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR goodwill ambassador, and former physician. His debut novel ''The Kite Runner'' (2003) wa ...

, '' Sea Prayer'', was published. Hosseini said that the idea of the novel was inspired by photographs by Demir.

Awards

* For her photo of Alan Kurdi, Demir won the Press Photo of the Year award in the 2016 Turkey Photojournalist Association Press’ Photos of the Year contest. * Gold medal as part of the 2016 Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize awarded by the

United Nations Correspondents Association The United Nations Correspondents Association (U.N. Correspondents Association), or UNCA, was founded in New York City in 1948. It has over 250 members today. It presents the annual UNCA Excellence in Journalism Awards. The purpose of the awards ...

for written media (including online media) Sponsored by the Alexander Bodini Foundation.The Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize 2016
on UNCA website

References

External links

* Ismail Küpeli:
We Spoke to the Photographer Behind the Picture of the Drowned Syrian Boy
.

Vice A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character tra ...

4 September 2015
Analysis of the viral impact of the photo of Aylan Kurdi on Social Media
by researchers led by Dr Farida Vis of

University of Sheffield , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

’s Visual Social Media Lab, 14 December 2015 (retrieved 13 March 2016) {{DEFAULTSORT:Demir, Nilufer 1986 births Living people 21st-century photographers Turkish photographers Turkish women photographers Migrants of the European migrant crisis 21st-century women photographers