Tobacconists in Adiyaman, Trabzon 1981 - Adiyaman 2014

Humanity Photo Award held by UNESCO & CFPA  China 2015 "Production and Commerce" section

A product takes an important place of a city's life. 600,000 people live in Adiyaman province, but job opportunities are still limited. An important part of the population is doing tobacco production with conventional methods. Merchants purchase a portion of. The remaining portion is processed in the running workshops under the houses in the city. This is not legal, However, the state has no jobs to offer to the public. Collected tobaccos from the field in August are being dried and then is being processed in small workshops. They are sent to the other provinces of Turkey in 5 kilos packages. People who want to prepare cigarettes himself purchase and use.

We met with Ismail and his wife at 4 a.m. early in the morning at dark and went to the field together. Tobacco should be collected before sunrise. Leaking liquid during the leaves accumulate in hands as a black gum and makes difficult to work in field. We ate breakfast together in the field and returned to home at 10 O'clock with tobaccos. All the members of the family helped each other to align the leafs to the rope under the arbor in front of the house. To make this the metal needle with a rope passes through the leafs. Work was completed at 12.00.  The biggest expectation of the family is to be able to get the reward for their labor.

The portfolio received the Humanity Photography Award in China in 2015, organized by UNESCO and CFPA.