ABOUT

Aytek Cetin is a Turkish landscape photographer and the overall winner of the 2021 International Landscape Photographer of the Year. He has photographed across Turkey, the Nepal Himalayas, Pakistan’s Karakoram, the deserts of Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the Caucasus.

Aytek is drawn to landscapes with a character of their own: an unusual landform, a sense of scale, a geography that feels unlike anywhere else. Finding the place is only half the work. The photograph depends on light and timing: a storm beginning to clear, haze settling between ridges, or a brief change that transforms the scene. In Turkey’s Black Sea Mountains, he once spent three days in a tent waiting for Verçenik Peak to emerge from the clouds.

Rather than simply documenting a place, he photographs it through his own way of seeing. He moves beyond established viewpoints and takes time to explore his surroundings before deciding how to frame them, letting light, layers, atmosphere, and weather shape the composition.

Alongside his personal work, Aytek leads photography tours and workshops in many of the regions he knows first-hand, sharing what he has learned in the field while encouraging other photographers to develop their own personal approach to the landscape.