Smartphone photography comes of age in the 8th Mobile Photography Awards

1st place winner in the Travel & Adventure category. Giza Pyramids, shot on a Samsung Galaxy, model unknown. (Credit: Luís Figueroa).

In its 8th year, the Mobile Photography Awards has finally become more than a niche or novelty photography competition. Celebrating the artistry that can be created using current smartphone cameras, this year’s winners demonstrate just how far the technology has come, with an incredible array of world-class photographs.

It’s fair to say this competition probably looked quite a bit different when Canadian photographer Daniel Berman founded the awards back in 2011. Whereas the challenge of the competition originally would have been to find a creative way around the resolution limitations of a mobile phone camera, eight years on technology has evolved to the point where the competition’s submissions are genuinely a match for any major global photographic competition.

“It’s another astounding year for the evolution of mobile phone cameras, both technologically and artistically,” says Berman.

1st place winner in Architecture & Design. In A Cracked Mirror, shot on an iPhoneX

Berman suggests the iPhone is still the smartphone behind the most winning entries, but among those celebrated submissions you will find photographs snapped with Google’s Pixel 3 and the latest Samsung Galaxys. The only conditions for entry into one of 20 different themed categories is that the image must be entirely created on a smartphone or tablet. Additionally, any editing or post-production can only be undertaken using apps on a smartphone or tablet.

More shots from Grand Prize winner Dominika Koszowska's body of work. Shot with a Sony Xperia

Alongside individual category winners, the jury selects an overall Grand Prize winner based on a larger body of submitted work. This year’s top prize went to Polish fine art photographer Dominika Koszowska for an incredible series of images shot with a Sony Xperia smartphone (one example above).

“The advantage of mobile photography is that I always have my phone with me. I can quickly edit a photo and share it with my family, social media, friends,” Koszowska explains. “Besides, I can easily blend in with the crowd without paying attention. The cost of taking a picture is really non-existent.”