TIME, one of the most influential news magazine, has picked DHA Journalist Nilüfer Demir’s Alan Kurdi photograph, whose lifeless body washed up on Bodrum shore, published wtih the title "The photograph that opened borders" as “One of the Most Influentual 15 Photographs of All Time". TIME had also picked the photograph as "One of the most Influencial 100 photographs" last week.

TIME published the Alan Kurdi photograph with the words of then Prime Minister of England David Cameron, “As a father, I felt deeply moved by the sight of that that young boy on a beach in Turkey.”

The photograph was described by TIME as; “The war in Syria had been going on for more than four years when Alan Kurdi’s parents lifted the 3 year olf boy and his five year old brother in to an inflatable boat and set off from the Turkish coast fort he Greek island of Kos, just three miles away. But within three minutes after they pushed off, a wave capsized the vessel, and the mother and both sons drowned. On the shore near the coastal town of Bodrum a few hours later, Nilüfer Demir of the Doğan News Agency came upon Alan, his face turned on one side and bottom elevated as if he were just asleep. “There was nothing left to do for him. There was nothing left to bring him back to life.” she said. So Demir raised her camera. “I thought, this is the only was I can express the scream of this silent body.”

The resulting image became the defining photograph of an ongoing war that had killed some 220.000 people by the time Demir pressed her shutter. Yet it wasn’t taken in Syria, a counrry the world preferred to ignore, but on the doorstep of Europe, where it’s refugee were heading. Dressed for travel, the child lay between one world and another; waves had washed away any chalky Brown dust that might replace him in a place foreign to Westerners’ ecperience. The Kurdis sought that experience for themselves, joining a migration fueled as much inspiration as desperation. The family had alrealy escaped bloodshed when they arrived in Turkey; they died trying to reach a better life.

TIME photograph editors Ben Goldberger, Paul Moakley and Kira Pollack, stated in the foreword as, “If a picture led to something important, it would be considered for inclusion. From that simple concept flowed countless decisions. Although photography is a much younger medium than painting–the first photo is widely considered to date from 1826–the astonishing technological advances since its beginning mean that there are now far more pictures taken on any given day than there are canvases in all the world’s galleries and museums. In 2016 alone, hundreds of billions of images were made. How do you narrow a pool that large? You start by calling in the experts. We reached out to curators, historians and photo editors around the world for suggestions. Their thoughtful nominations whittled the field, and then we asked TIME reporters and editors to see whether those held up to scrutiny. That meant conducting thousands of interviews with the photographers, picture subjects, their friends, family members and others–anywhere the rabbit holes led. There is no formula that makes a picture influential. Some images are on our list because they were the first of their kind, others because they shaped the way we think. And some made the cut because they directly changed the way we live.”

Mahmut Can Emir / İstanbul, (DHA)