Country: Turkey 🇹🇷
F. Dilek Yurdakul is an award winning documentary photographer and lawyer based in Ankara, Türkiye. Born in Çanakkale, she graduated from the Faculty of Law at Gazi University and pursued graduate studies in Labor and Social Security Law. Alongside her legal career, she has devoted the past eight years primarily to photography, working independently as a freelance visual storyteller focused on social and environmental issues.
Her photographic practice explores the intersection of documentary storytelling and artistic visual language. Through long term projects, she documents urgent contemporary issues such as climate change, drought, water scarcity, labor conditions, migration, health crises, and the social consequences of environmental transformation. Her work often focuses on communities and realities that remain unseen, questioning the fragile relationship between humanity, nature, and survival.
As both a lawyer and photographer, Yurdakul approaches storytelling with a strong ethical perspective, combining visual aesthetics with social awareness. She believes photography is not only a medium of witnessing, but also a powerful tool for recognition, empathy, and change. Alongside documentary photography, she also works in street, travel, and drone photography, creating multilayered visual narratives that merge atmosphere, symbolism, and human experience.
She has received more than 200 international awards and has exhibited her work worldwide. Her recognitions include the Sony World Photography Awards, International Photography Awards, Hamdan International Photography Award, Travel Photographer of the Year, and Xposure International Photography Festival. In 2017, she became the second Turkish photographer and the first Turkish woman photographer to win the National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year. Her work has also been exhibited in countries including France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Mexico, Italy, Poland, Austria, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates.
Yurdakul is a contributor photographer for National Geographic Your Shot and National Geographic Türkiye, and has collaborated with international organizations, festivals, and institutions on projects related to social impact and visual storytelling. She has lectured on photography and documentary storytelling at universities in Ankara and frequently speaks at photography festivals, associations, and TEDx events about women’s visibility, transformation, and the social role of photography.
Through her work, she aims to create visually compelling narratives that not only document reality, but also encourage dialogue and greater awareness about the human condition and the rapidly changing world around us.
Her photographic practice explores the intersection of documentary storytelling and artistic visual language. Through long term projects, she documents urgent contemporary issues such as climate change, drought, water scarcity, labor conditions, migration, health crises, and the social consequences of environmental transformation. Her work often focuses on communities and realities that remain unseen, questioning the fragile relationship between humanity, nature, and survival.
As both a lawyer and photographer, Yurdakul approaches storytelling with a strong ethical perspective, combining visual aesthetics with social awareness. She believes photography is not only a medium of witnessing, but also a powerful tool for recognition, empathy, and change. Alongside documentary photography, she also works in street, travel, and drone photography, creating multilayered visual narratives that merge atmosphere, symbolism, and human experience.
She has received more than 200 international awards and has exhibited her work worldwide. Her recognitions include the Sony World Photography Awards, International Photography Awards, Hamdan International Photography Award, Travel Photographer of the Year, and Xposure International Photography Festival. In 2017, she became the second Turkish photographer and the first Turkish woman photographer to win the National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year. Her work has also been exhibited in countries including France, the United Kingdom, the United States, Mexico, Italy, Poland, Austria, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates.
Yurdakul is a contributor photographer for National Geographic Your Shot and National Geographic Türkiye, and has collaborated with international organizations, festivals, and institutions on projects related to social impact and visual storytelling. She has lectured on photography and documentary storytelling at universities in Ankara and frequently speaks at photography festivals, associations, and TEDx events about women’s visibility, transformation, and the social role of photography.
Through her work, she aims to create visually compelling narratives that not only document reality, but also encourage dialogue and greater awareness about the human condition and the rapidly changing world around us.