Bahar Kural is an internationally acclaimed fine art photographer whose work has earned more than 180 awards worldwide since 2020. Her celebrated series Brooklyn Bridge: Life’s Theater has won a record-breaking 17 international awards—more than any other series by a photography artist—garnering Gold Medals at the Paris International Street Photography Awards and the Tokyo International Foto Awards, as well as top honors in Moscow, Paris, and beyond. Other award-winning series, including Transient Echoes: A Day at the Beach—which won the top prize at the Pollux Awards—and Art Deco New York, explore the poetry of architecture, the freedom of urban and coastal life, and the fleeting nature of human presence.
Bahar’s photographs navigate the intersections of architecture, human presence, memory, and abstraction. In her city works, buildings become characters, and streets transform into stages where the theater of life unfolds. In her coastal series, water and sky blur into dreamlike expanses, evoking both freedom and transience. Across her portfolio, she explores how spaces—urban or natural—hold traces of human experience, revealing beauty, impermanence, and the unseen structures of daily life.
Her work is collected and exhibited widely, including the installation of 36 artworks in a seven-story Upper East Side mansion she owns and built from the ground up, and the staging of a 4,000-square-foot Tribeca loft she owns and developed, featuring twenty-five of her photographs.
A native of Istanbul and based in New York City, Bahar also leads Bahar Kural Development, specializing in boutique ground-up projects and restorations in New York and Turkey. Educated at Robert College of Istanbul, Swarthmore College, and Columbia Business School, she merges artistic vision with entrepreneurial spirit to create spaces and images that are striking, timeless, and deeply personal.
2023 - Tokyo Foto Awards: 5
5 Honorable Mentions
2023 - Paris Street Photography Awards: 6
1 Gold, 1 Finalist, 2 Silver, 2 Honorable Mentions
2023 - International Photography Awards: 8
8 Honorable Mentions
2023 - The Prix de la Photographie, Paris (PX3): 5
1 Bronze, 4 Honorable Mentions
2023 - 20th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards
1 Category Win, 21 Honorable Mentions
2023 - 16th International Color Awards
1 First Place, 7 Honorable Mentions, 10 Nominations
2023 - 19th Pollux Awards
21 Honorable Mentions
2022 Annual Photography Awards
1 Honorable Mention
2022 Tokyo International Foto Awards
1 Bronze, 1 Honorable Mention
2022 - 19th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards
4 Category Wins, 32 Honorable Mentions
2022 Pollux Awards
1 Category Winner, 5 Honorable Mentions
2022 Luxembourg Art Prize
Certificate of Artistic Achievement
2021 Tokyo International Foto Awards
1 Gold, 4 Honorable Mentions and 3 Official Selection Awards
2021 MasterPrize in Architecture Awards
1 Gold and 3 Honorable Mentions
2021 Moscow International Foto Awards
2 Silver, 2 Bronze and 6 Honorable Mentions
2021 Budapest International Foto Awards
1 Silver and 4 Honorable Mentions
Prix de la Photographie Paris 2021 Awards
1 Bronze and 1 Silver and 3 Honorable Mentions
2021 International Photography Awards
7 Honorable Mentions
2021 Neutral Density Awards
3 Honorable Mentions
2021 - 18th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards
3 Honorable Mentions
2021 One Eyeland Awards
World’s Top 10 Mobile Photographer Award
2021 Luxembourg Art Prize
Certificate of Artistic Achievement
2020 Paris International Street Photography Awards
1 Gold, 1 Silver and 1 Finalist Awards
2020 International Photography Awards
The Jury Top 5 Award and 8 Honorable Mentions
2020 Neutral Density Awards
1 Honorable Mention