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Apple Announces 10 Best Photos People Took Within The Last 6 Months On iPhone Around The World
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New year, new photography contests, and new best photo winners! This time Apple announced ten winners for their 'Shot on iPhone' contest for 2019. The photo contest took place from January 22 to February 7 and aimed to celebrate photographs captured through the iPhone camera lens. The entries were submitted through social media, with a hashtag #ShotOniPhone mark to set them from an endless stream of photographs, as well as sent directly to Apple. The company handpicked a panel of 11 judges, from photographers to artists to Apple technicians, to review the submitted iPhone photos and select the winning shots.
On February 26, Apple announced its ten iPhone photography winners to be featured on billboards in select cities in Apple retail stores and online. "The winning shots came from a range of models, from iPhone XS Max to iPhone 7, showcasing the quality of iPhone cameras across the line" the blog entry on Apple's site detailed the process. The selection of photographs for the top 10 shows how widespread the iPhone photography community is, with photos coming from Singapore, Germany, Belarus, Israel, and the US.
The judges of the contest — Pete Souza, Austin Mann, Annet de Graaf, Luísa Dörr, Chen Man, Phil Schiller, Kaiann Drance, Brooks Kraft, Sebastien Marineau-Mes, Jon McCormack and Arem Duplessis — offered their commentary for the cool photos, explaining what made them stand out in the crowd of other snaps.
More info: Apple
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Darren Soh (Singapore), iPhone Xs Max
Phil Schiller says: “A reflection that looks like a painting, two worlds have collided. You are compelled to think about where and how this photo was taken, the bird flying in the corner provides the single sign of life in an otherwise surreal composition.”
Chen Man says: “Distortion and reflection at a strange angle — this photo creates a fantastic feeling.”
Elizabeth Scarrott (US), iPhone 8 Plus
Brooks Kraft says: “A portrait that captures the wonderment of childhood in a beautiful setting. Great composition that shows both the personality of the child and the experience in the surroundings.”
Pete Souza says: “Nice portrait and use of background to provide context. The placement of the child’s face is in an optimal place — lining her up so the background directly behind her is clean and not distracting. The setting is a familiar — I’ve probably stood in this exact spot. But the picture is not like any I’ve seen from this location.”
Blake Marvin (US), iPhone Xs Max
Austin Mann says: “This image took a lot of patience and great timing … with the iPhone’s zero shutter lag and Smart HDR, we’re able to see both the raccoon’s eyes and the deep shadows inside the log … something that would have previously been nearly impossible with natural light.”
Phil Schiller says: “The stolen glance between this raccoon/thief and photographer is priceless, we can imagine that it is saying ‘if you back away slowly no one has to get hurt.’ A nice use of black and white, the focus on the raccoon and the inside of the hollow log provides an organic movement frozen in time.”
Alex Jiang (US), iPhone Xs Max
Chen Man says: “This is a photo filled with lovely color and sense of story in the composition. Zooming in, you can see details of each family and their unique touch. The basketball hoop is placed right in the middle of the photo, adding more stories behind the image.”
Annet de Graaf says: “The narrative in architecture. There is actually life behind the surface of an average apartment building in an unknown city. Vivid colors and a perfect composition with the basketball board right in the middle! Great eye.”
Andrew Griswold (US), iPhone Xs
Jon McCormack says: “This image is very well thought through and executed. The background pattern holds the image together and the repeated smaller versions of that pattern in the water droplets create a lot of visual interest. The creative use of depth of field here is excellent.”
Sebastien Marineau-Mes says: “Very unique composition and color palette, playing to the strengths of iPhone XS. What I find most interesting is the background pattern, uniquely magnified and distorted in every one of the water droplets. I’m drawn to studying and trying to elucidate what that pattern is.”
Robert Glaser (Germany), iPhone 7
Kaiann Drance says: “Gorgeous dynamic range. There’s detail throughout the photo in the meadow, trees, and clouds. Beautiful deep sky and pleasing color overall.”
The trees almost look like green clouds on the ground. Lovely photo.
Dina Alfasi (Israel), iPhone X
Sebastien Marineau-Mes says: “Love how the heart shaped water puddle frames the subject, capturing a glimpse of the world as the subject hurriedly walks past.”
Brooks Kraft says: “A unique perspective and a new take on the popular subject of shooting reflections. I like that the subject is evident, but you are not really sure how the photo was taken. The puddle is the shape of a heart, with nice symmetry of the subject. The depth of field that iPhone has in regular mode made this image possible, a DSLR would have had a difficult time keeping everything in focus.”
Bernard Antolin (US), iPhone Xs Max
Kaiann Drance says: “Looks like a simple scene but a good choice of using black and white to elevate it with a different mood. Helps to bring out the dramatic contrast in the clouds and the surrounding landscape.”
Lieadi Darmawan (US), iPhone Xs
Luísa Dörr says: “I feel like this landscape was treated like an old portrait. The texture of the mountains evokes an old wrinkled face. Portraits and landscapes are the oldest way of creative representation by humans. There’s something about it that belongs to the realms of the subconscious mind, and this is mainly what appeals me of this picture; the part that I’m not able to explain.”
Nikita Yarosh (Belarus), iPhone 7
Austin Mann says: “I love how accessible this image is: You don’t have to travel to Iceland to capture something beautiful, it’s right under your nose. The way the lines intersect, the vibrant color, the sense of old and new … this is just a great image.”
Luísa Dörr says: “I like the simplicity of this image, the composition, light, details, everything looks good. Then you see one small line that looks wrong and makes me think what happened, where is this place, who was there. For me a good image is not only one that is strong or beautiful, but makes you think about it — and keep thinking.”
What surprises me the most is that people actually BOUGHT the iPhone Xs max.
Waste that much for a camera? I heard of some Nokia phone with the PureView Technology (41 MP) compared to the iPhone's 12 MP camera.
There is a certain amount of requirement in having enough MP for resolution in the image but the majority falls into patience, timing, vision, imagination, and desire to get the shot no matter the conditions or dangers. When digital cameras first came out the MP was deplorable and the image quality was just as bad but putting the cameras in the hands of skilled photographers still netted art gallery quality shots and if you do a little digging online you can find articles about this including one or two on Bored Panda ( one from last year where an artist used a kids camera and average people used her pro gear and she outdid the average people ). Paul knows this and Porto gave a good example that is spot on. You don't need high-end gear or even mid-range gear to shoot great pictures or make great music.
astronomical MP means nothing unless your works are supposed to be printed on billboards, it's the quality of the components (paired with user skill) making the results. Same goes for audio, where you are bamboozled into buying interfaces sampling at one gazillion kHz and left wondering why your songs doesn't sound any better ! PS i'm the most ridiculous Apple hater so no bias involved here
Have you priced good cameras lately? That phone is a bargain.
Yeah, because its megapixels that are important when taking a beautiful photo right? 🙄
Ha I couldn't even take these good pictures with $2000 equipment
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Person shut up you can't but a camera for exactly 2,000.00 US dollars. Liar
e q u i p m e nt
Excellent photos, but I wonder if this is with the stock camera, or if it's with thousands of dollars of kit. Remember the "filmed on iPhone" commercials a couple years ago, turns out "Yes, but not really" because they had completely kitted out the phone and it wasn't an honest representation of the experience most users will have?
Right?
My iPhone XR could do that level of photos easily. It's just how you take them. Quality is excellent.
Apple, dreadful company. The awful ios. The tech isn't better and yet is priced deliberately into making people think they are getting THE premium product. You aren't. They are made in a factory famous for suicides because of working conditions. The tech is deliberately incompatible to other technology so they can charge a fortune for licences if a company wants to make compatible tech. In fact they are so unpopular with the majority of tech companies because of this that some just don't bother making their products ios compatible which means people with iphones, while expecting their 'marvellous' tech to work with other prodcuts it rarely does. Eg a CCTV system that the company refuses to make ios compatible due to it costing them ridiculous amounts, why would they bother? iPhones aren't the top sellers after all. They do deliberately make their tech slow as it gets old so that you are forced into replacing it. Their ethos is wrong in so many ways.
Gee Liam...those grapes are sour. Some of us like to be able to USE our devices right out of the box. Forcing users to spend a fortune on software and hours of time to set up a phone just to save a couple of bucks indicates to me a company that will sell any old piece of crap because they've suckered you into doing their job.
My grapes are a tad sour just now Aunty Messy! Though I've not explained myself well. I'm not talking about the phone per se but smart tech that's accessible via a tablet, laptop or phone. Eg multi room music systems. Recently installing a multi camera CCTV system for a customer that is not compatible with ios - despite making sure the customer knew the spec, what was required by them etc they didn't tell me they had ios tech. I spoke to the CCTV manufacturer who said they have no intention of making it work with ios because the licence is ridiculously priced (hundreds of thousands, though price depends on many factors). There are many examples where smart technology requires phone/computer for access but ios makes it difficult and the licences the companies have to buy in order to develop compatible software for ios are exorbitant. For large companies it is millions. Android licences are not as expensive & they genuinely want their products to be compatible.
What surprises me the most is that people actually BOUGHT the iPhone Xs max.
Waste that much for a camera? I heard of some Nokia phone with the PureView Technology (41 MP) compared to the iPhone's 12 MP camera.
There is a certain amount of requirement in having enough MP for resolution in the image but the majority falls into patience, timing, vision, imagination, and desire to get the shot no matter the conditions or dangers. When digital cameras first came out the MP was deplorable and the image quality was just as bad but putting the cameras in the hands of skilled photographers still netted art gallery quality shots and if you do a little digging online you can find articles about this including one or two on Bored Panda ( one from last year where an artist used a kids camera and average people used her pro gear and she outdid the average people ). Paul knows this and Porto gave a good example that is spot on. You don't need high-end gear or even mid-range gear to shoot great pictures or make great music.
astronomical MP means nothing unless your works are supposed to be printed on billboards, it's the quality of the components (paired with user skill) making the results. Same goes for audio, where you are bamboozled into buying interfaces sampling at one gazillion kHz and left wondering why your songs doesn't sound any better ! PS i'm the most ridiculous Apple hater so no bias involved here
Have you priced good cameras lately? That phone is a bargain.
Yeah, because its megapixels that are important when taking a beautiful photo right? 🙄
Ha I couldn't even take these good pictures with $2000 equipment
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
Person shut up you can't but a camera for exactly 2,000.00 US dollars. Liar
e q u i p m e nt
Excellent photos, but I wonder if this is with the stock camera, or if it's with thousands of dollars of kit. Remember the "filmed on iPhone" commercials a couple years ago, turns out "Yes, but not really" because they had completely kitted out the phone and it wasn't an honest representation of the experience most users will have?
Right?
My iPhone XR could do that level of photos easily. It's just how you take them. Quality is excellent.
Apple, dreadful company. The awful ios. The tech isn't better and yet is priced deliberately into making people think they are getting THE premium product. You aren't. They are made in a factory famous for suicides because of working conditions. The tech is deliberately incompatible to other technology so they can charge a fortune for licences if a company wants to make compatible tech. In fact they are so unpopular with the majority of tech companies because of this that some just don't bother making their products ios compatible which means people with iphones, while expecting their 'marvellous' tech to work with other prodcuts it rarely does. Eg a CCTV system that the company refuses to make ios compatible due to it costing them ridiculous amounts, why would they bother? iPhones aren't the top sellers after all. They do deliberately make their tech slow as it gets old so that you are forced into replacing it. Their ethos is wrong in so many ways.
Gee Liam...those grapes are sour. Some of us like to be able to USE our devices right out of the box. Forcing users to spend a fortune on software and hours of time to set up a phone just to save a couple of bucks indicates to me a company that will sell any old piece of crap because they've suckered you into doing their job.
My grapes are a tad sour just now Aunty Messy! Though I've not explained myself well. I'm not talking about the phone per se but smart tech that's accessible via a tablet, laptop or phone. Eg multi room music systems. Recently installing a multi camera CCTV system for a customer that is not compatible with ios - despite making sure the customer knew the spec, what was required by them etc they didn't tell me they had ios tech. I spoke to the CCTV manufacturer who said they have no intention of making it work with ios because the licence is ridiculously priced (hundreds of thousands, though price depends on many factors). There are many examples where smart technology requires phone/computer for access but ios makes it difficult and the licences the companies have to buy in order to develop compatible software for ios are exorbitant. For large companies it is millions. Android licences are not as expensive & they genuinely want their products to be compatible.