Here are the winners of Apple's 'Shot on iPhone' photography challenge

Posted:
in iPhone edited February 2019
Apple has selected winners of its "Shot on iPhone" challenge, which sought the best photographs taken on Apple's smartphone, with some of the top entries highlighted on the Today show on Tuesday.

Photo credit: Alex Jiang
Photo credit: Alex Jiang


Launched in January, the Shot on iPhone Challenge tasked iPhone owners with submitting their best photograph to Apple, with the potential of having it featured in Apple's advertising, social media, in stores, and in the company's internal exhibitions. Following the end of the submission period on February 7, Apple has now revealed the winners of the competition.

Shown on the Today show by Apple representative Kaiann Drance, the images range from a colorful shot of apartments to black and white images of scenery, as well as shots taking advantage of reflections and featuring animals. According to Apple, the winning images were produced on both newer and older models, ranging from the iPhone XS Max to the iPhone 7.



The winners were selected by a judging panel made up of many prominent photographers, including the chief official White House photographer for President Obama Pete Souza, Apple vice president of Software Sebastien Marineau-Mes, and iPhone travel photographer Annet de Graaf.

Shortly after the launch of the competition, it was noted Apple seemingly did not offer any prizes to the winners other than exposure. Apple later updated its contest announcement to add that the ten winners would receive a licensing fee for the usage of the images in Apple's marketing channels, and for the photographers to retain the rights to their work, though the size of the fee itself is unknown.

As part of the contest, participants had to submit images to Instagram, Twitter, or Weibo using the hashtag #ShotoniPhone, which has been extensively used in the past to promote images taken with the most recently released models. The long-running campaign includes both still images taken by amateur and professional photographers, as well as videos specially commissioned by Apple that use the smartphone as the camera.

  • Photo credit: Alex Jiang
  • Photo credit: Andrew Griswold
  • Photo Credit: Bernard Antolin
  • Photo Credit: Blake Marvin
  • Photo Credit: Darren Soh
  • Photo Credit: Dina Alfasi
  • Photo Credit: Elizabeth Scarrott
  • Photo Credit: LieAdi Darmawan
  • Photo Credit: Nikita Yarosh
  • Photo Credit: Robert Glaser

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    steven n.steven n. Posts: 1,229member
    There are some amazingly solid photographs there. I’m still amazed at the quality people get out of a phone these days. 

    It it is interesting not one is shot with portrait mode. 
    randominternetpersoncornchipStrangeDays
  • Reply 2 of 8
    Amazing shots. It’s still the combination of tool and artist‘s ability that counts. 
    Congrats to all winners!
    cornchip
  • Reply 3 of 8
    I wonder if and how Apple verifies these photos were shot with an iPhone instead of other devices with the resolution and metadata manipulated so that the images appear to be shot with an iPhone?
    cornchip
  • Reply 4 of 8
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    Gorgeous shots although the crack in the tennis court is my least favorite. Still it’s 1000x better than what I would take. 
  • Reply 5 of 8
    They're all nice photos, but like Jungmark says, the crack in the tennis court doesn't do much for me. 

    I did submit one photo and didn't expect to win, but I'm glad I did anyway. At least someone had to look at what I submitted.
  • Reply 6 of 8
    zroger73 said:
    I wonder if and how Apple verifies these photos were shot with an iPhone instead of other devices with the resolution and metadata manipulated so that the images appear to be shot with an iPhone?
    What would be the motivation to be deceptive?  The chance of actually winning with a doctored photo would be incredibly small, so why bother?  Therefore, I doubt Apple is going to exceptional lengths to confirm that they were shot on an iPhone.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    zroger73 said:
    I wonder if and how Apple verifies these photos were shot with an iPhone instead of other devices with the resolution and metadata manipulated so that the images appear to be shot with an iPhone?
    If someone knows what they are doing, it's pretty much impossible to know if the metadata has been changed. It's fairly easy to change the EXIF metadata. 
    edited February 2019 zroger73
  • Reply 8 of 8
    bill42bill42 Posts: 131member
    zroger73 said:
    I wonder if and how Apple verifies these photos were shot with an iPhone instead of other devices with the resolution and metadata manipulated so that the images appear to be shot with an iPhone?
    If someone knows what they are doing, it's pretty much impossible to know if the metadata has been changed. It's fairly easy to change the EXIF metadata. 
    Simple, they hold their finger down on the image to make sure it is a Live Photo! 
    cornchip
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