Smartphone style: The winners of the Annual Mobile Photography Awards

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From the Grand Prize Winner’s portfolio, ‘The Desert Nomad’. Taken with iPhone XS Max. Daniel Heilig.

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In its ninth year, the Mobile Photography Awards presents an incredible snapshot of photography in the 21st century highlighting how truly sophisticated smartphone camera technology has become. Spanning 20 categories, the winning entries offer a compelling insight into a new and innovative medium.“The 9^th Annual Mobile Photography Awards is testament to another year in the rapid evolution of mobile phone cameras, both technologically and artistically,” says Daniel Berman, founder of the awards.

Grand Prize Winning Portfolio. Taken with iPhone X Daniel Heilig.

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The Grand Prize this year went to German-based artist Daniel Heilig, who was born in 1985 and remembers his very first camera of any kind being an Apple iPhone 3GS. Heilig’s winning portfolio of images was taken with an iPhone XS Max, and he suggests mobile photography allows for a novel kind of creativity, determined more by empathy than artifice.

“The balancing act is no longer about aesthetic and posed situation but critical distance and emotional engagement, empathy and voyeurism,” says Heilig.

Winner Landscapes, 'Pearls'. Taken with iPhone XS — *Winner Landscapes, ‘Pearls’. Taken with iPhone XS Sharon Barezer.*

This sense that mobile technology catalyzes a new kind of artistic approach to photography pervades the diverse array of winning images. Unlike more traditional cameras, which can be large and imposing, smartphones are prolific and ever-present, allowing for unique images to be captured from new perspectives.

“… the iPhone is still the most widely used by our entrants but this year we’ve seen a wide variety of camera phones used for our winning photos,” adds Berman.

And iPhones indeed seem to have taken the majority of the winning images in this year’s competition. However, there are some winning shots taken with Huawei or Samsung phones, and some older smartphones are still claiming prizes in 2020, including a shot from an iPhone 6S winning the best self-portrait category.