Slideshow: Winning photographs of the 2020 iPhone Photography Awards

Don't we love to ogle at souls less fortunate than ourselves? I wander what part of the prize those three peasants got? But kiss I expect.

2, 11 and 16 are really good, a couple more are ok, but most of the compositions and subjects are uninspired. Perhaps the next stage of AI should be to let the photographer know when a composition has any value?

As smartphones use Artificial Intelligence to improve your photos, you can't claim to be the the Artist

Good compositions and capturing the moment but hopeless quality, just press the 100 % zoom and the snap shows strange artifacts, immense amount of noise, looks more like a coarse painting on canvas than a snap - For someone who made a comment about FF snaps, do try doing the same on those snaps !

It's hilarious that the phone photo contest winners were much better than the contests held by big camera companies.

Some really good ones here,

I especially like the "Demons Lighting the Sky" shot.

Great pictures! iPhone has some of the best
looking colours of any camera

Mercifully free of photo-journalism and "issues", unlike Sony's awards.

Glad it’s about capturing a scene and not necessarily the camera....

vast majority of the pictures are worthless

I really didn't see anything in there that couldn't have been shot with an iPhone.

There's some great shots here...once again the best camera is the one you have with you.

Everyone of them better than the Palm photo awards and some better than the Sony awards. Right time, right place > right gear. Tough to take for those with a small mortgage for a truck load of lenses.

Beautiful artistic photos. As a beginner, I invested in entry level mirror-less. But every time new camera/lens is launched, just obsess about it, following its previews and reviews, yearning for it. Thankfully some YouTube videos and comments section discussions(fights) here have made me realise I must avoid this impulse. For personal images, and clearly for art worth sharing, gear in hand is sufficient. Composition, timing, editing, filters shall be new obsession (hehe)

Apparently the unwritten rule of all photo contests is that at least one winning entry must include Icelandic ponies.

Er, #7, floral winner -- haven't we all thrown away "that" photo, many times?

Wonderful stuff. Whenever DPR shows contest-winning pix I always have the thought that many were captured because the photographer was in the right place at the right time. Much as I'd love to be there with the 6D or M50, I think I'll be more apt to have my phone with me wherever I go after musing on these beautiful images.

Very nice images. Considering that a phone is the one camera you will always have with you, at least the results can be pretty good nowadays.

Nice photos that evoke the same emotions as those from dedicated cameras.

If we can ever replace glass lenses with nanoscale meta material lenses that overlay sensors or some such technology, I could see a time when cameras and phones complete the merger. A good portion or the entire backside of your phone could be an image sensor. Focusing and zooming all done at the microscopic scale.

But even then, I still like the experience that I have with my camera gear today. I don’t think we can say that this hobby and profession is only about the final image and the viewer’s reaction. It’s also about the photographer’s experience and creativity and the process leading up to the final result.

It is the art not the tool. Even the crappiest smart phone today takes better pictures than the first, probably first five digital cameras I have owned. I still miss that QV-10.

Being there is 90% of photography. Then again being there with a bigger sensor is even better.

I prefer these photos more than the Sony World Photography Award.

Some very good pics, some of them shot from people that seem to have some closer relation to photography, some not.
Comments about smartphones brands and cams vs phones as usually.

Some nice work there.

Why can’t some people appreciate a photo taken by a Smartphone camera? That they have to brag about the “real” camera(s) they own that can take gazillion times better, and that they could magnify it at gazillion percent and still looks good.

There are several smartphone photographers out there that can take better photos than most of the people here and yet are not acknowledge because they are not using a “real” camera. Similarly, there people here that own the latest camera equipment(s) and yet they can only take snapshot type photos (me included)..

All in all, I like the photos. Yes, it looks bad viewing at 100% or even at 50% but the viewing medium for smartphone photos is through a smartphone screen. I give credit to those smartphone photographers that can go out there and take the pictures they want but I don’t go out of my way to bash the photographers nor their equipment that can only take snapshot type photos.

I came here for comments from the armchair critics. I wasn't disappointed 😀

Wow - some absolute crackers in there. The Varanasi boat shot is a standout for me.

A few good ones, some extensively photoshoped ones and a bunch of bad ones.

I remember the iPhone awards to have better composed images

The one with the flower dead center and terrible image quality made me cringe and is evocative of the current generation of instagram photograher wannabees that are clueless about the basic technical aspects of photograhy.

But ... But ... It is not Full Frame, it cannot be, only full frame can make good shots, this is wrong, all users of this page who have pinned their hopes of improving with a full frame system and will never get shots like those in this contest are going to feel awful.

seeing this, we understand why people do not buy 2 000 usd cameras anymore...

I appreciate the smartphone camera improvements we've seen over the years but I have a weird phobia that I will someday capture a truly great image on a smartphone and will then immediately regret not having a decent quality version from a proper camera. Like it'll be the best photo I've ever taken or will ever take but it'll be some grainy overprocessed mess that I can never create a stunning large print of because I was too lazy to carry a decent camera. Can someone petition the American Psychiatric Association to add this as a proper phobia? Maybe I could get a doctor to prescribe a Ricoh GR or Fuji X100.

Quite a few nice ones there. If I had made some of these, I'd be wishing I had taken a real camera to get those shots but then glad I got something at least.

Simply stunning!

Bravo! Just goes to show that it's more about the person behind the camera, rather than what kind of camera is used.

Very good photos. I especially like #19 the rowboat and the birds.

Many of these are really stunning, showing that it's not the tool but the photographer (and let's be honest, some editing). Just a few of them are entirely underwhelming! (7,10,12)

It always comes back to composition, telling your story, lighting, colors, the basics of visual art.

So much deep depth of field...

Kidding, but seriously I really like the rowboat and birds pic. Also the architectural one from Milan. Great photos overall.

Great photos in general. Congratulations to the winners, well done.

One of those images was taken with an antique iPhone 4! I didn’t think anyone still used those.

I'm surprised there isn't an equivalent Android Photography Award sponsored by Google/Samsung/et al.

Some of these images are just gorgeous. The most important camera is the one you carry with you. Still, I wish they had been shot with a proper camera. They would look great as fine art prints...