A shot of two world-weary shepherds has won this year’s iPhone Photography Awards, the world’s longest running iPhone photography competition. In its 14th year, the contest well and truly showcases impressive modern smartphone camera technology.
Looking back at the celebrated snaps from the first year of this long-running contest its hard not to be impressed with how quickly smartphone camera technology has progressed. Nowadays smartphone photo contests deliver winning shots that can rival the quality of any professional competition.
This year’s Grand Prize Winner perfectly encapsulates the way smartphone photography can catch unusual, spontaneous moments. Hungarian photojournalist Istvan Kerekes’ shot captures a pair of shepherds in a bleak industrial landscape, offering a stark contrast between old and new worlds.
While many awarded shots in this year’s contest were unsurprisingly taken with the latest iPhone models, there were lots of winning photos snapped with older iPhones. Kerekes’ winning shot, for example, was taken with an iPhone 7.
The Awards span 17 categories covering all the usual suspects, from Animals, Landscapes, and Nature, to Architecture and Portrait. The rules of entry forbid desktop image editing but do allow iPhone or iPad apps to be used. Since there are some pretty sophisticated photo editing apps around nowadays one would imagine this rule could do with some updating, but considering the shots that have been awarded it seems like the judges prefer a light touch with image manipulation.
Other highlights include a handful of stunning sunset shots, a surreal snap of an astronaut wandering through the desert, and some colorful geometric architectural perspectives.
Take a look through our gallery at more highlights from this year's contest. And check out highlights from prior years here.
Source: IPPA