A portion of the winning photograph by Associated Press photographer Burhan Ozbilici.
There's an old trope about what makes for the best photographs: "You gotta be in the right place at the right time."
The great photojournalist Robert Capa added to that, saying, "If your photos aren't good enough, you're not close enough."
In December, Burhan Ozbilici, a photographer for The Associated Press, was in the right place at the right time. And he was incredibly close — as close as you would want to be to witness an assassination.
Ozbilici was at an art exhibition in the Turkish capital, Ankara. Suddenly, an off-duty police officer drew a pistol and shot dead the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov.
Ozbilici lifted his camera and went to work. And now, his photo of that heavy moment has just been named the World Press Photo of the year.
Ozbilici described his emotional state as the assassination unfolded:
"It was a horrible moment, extremely difficult," he said. "First, it was extremely hot like I had boiling water on my head. Then, very cold, very cold. It was extremely dangerous. But, at the same time, I understood it was big history … it was a very very important incident. At the same time, I was very sad for this innocent man."
The award-winning photograph shows the black-suited assassin standing above his victim shouting, with one arm pointing to the ceiling and the other holding a pistol.
The photograph shows a murder; a vicious crime, just committed.
Warning: The following image depicts violence and death.
"I think it's an incredibly hard-hitting news photograph — [a] great spot news story," said Stuart Franklin, World Press Photo awards' jury chair. "It wasn't just a photograph, it was a spot news story and I think that Burhan was incredibly courageous and had extraordinary composure in being able to sort of calm himself down in the middle of the affray and take the commanding pictures that he took."
Despite the praise, Franklin voted against Ozbilici's photograph.
Franklin doesn't deny the spot news importance — a World Press award category Ozbilici also won — but suggested that what the photo depicts — a murder with the killer and the slain, both seen in the same picture, is "morally as problematic to publish as a terrorist beheading."
Franklin argues that celebrating a photograph like Ozbilici's "reaffirms the compact between martyrdom and publicity."
His point speaks to a long debate that gets at the heart of photojournalism.