In 2025, the Wiki Loves Monuments competition was held in Türkiye for the first time. Over 7,000 photographs documenting the country’s cultural monuments were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons as part of the event. The top prize went to a photograph of one of the most iconic landmarks in my hometown: the Grand Mosque of Bursa.
The photographer behind the work is Serdar Kıran, who lives in my city. The photograph depicts the 600-year-old Grand Mosque of Bursa covered in snow, with the colorful houses behind it. Another photograph of the Grand Mosque, taken by Serdar on the same day, placed 7th in the competition. Recently, I had the opportunity to meet him in Bursa and hear the story behind the photographs directly from him.
Serdar has been practicing photography for six years and has won awards in numerous national and international competitions. He explains that his goal is to reveal the invisible emotional bonds between people through his work. On the streets, he seeks to capture a smile, a glance, or a fleeting moment of anticipation. Interestingly, the photographs that earned awards were taken during the pandemic, when the streets lay almost deserted.
That day, after obtaining permission to go out, Serdar found himself on snow-covered, deserted streets in the center of Bursa.“The city was left to itself,” he explains. In this desolation, he photographed the city’s architectural structures. Reflecting on these photographs, he says:
“These photographs capture the traces of life in the city even when people are absent, the memory embedded in the silence, and the continuity of culture. They reveal how the past becomes visible again at a moment when modern life has come to a pause.”
Serdar is delighted that by sharing his photographs on Wikimedia Commons, he can make his work accessible to internet users and that they can be used to enrich Wikipedia articles. He believes that photographs capture readers’ attention and create an emotional and visual connection with the information. He also cites studies showing that high-quality images embedded in texts increase readers’ engagement, comprehension, and recall.
Serdar plans to keep photographing both people and historical landmarks, using his work to bring the echoes of the past into the present. I’m excited to see his future projects and can already feel the joy of contributing to Wikipedia with these striking images that reveal the soul of the past.
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