2026 iPhone Photography Awards Winners Redefine the Concept of ‘iPhone Photography’

The 2026 iPhone Photography Awards, announced Wednesday, showcase the best photos taken with iPhone cameras, including this year’s Grand Prix-winning night photo of a volcano, taken with an iPhone 15 Pro by Robyn Jensen.

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Whenever photos taken with phones are noticed, well-meaning people trot out photographer Chase Jarvis’ quote, “The best camera is the one you have.” But that most quoted quote is often delivered with the unspoken context of, “I think the iPhone is better than nothing at all, but the picture would be better if you had a real camera with you.”

But the images in this year’s collection never feel comfortable. Without peering at the pixel level, you wouldn’t know that almost all the images are from Apple smartphones. Only a few look like “iPhone photos” to my eyes.

The awards prove that you don’t need the current iPhone model to make great photos. The photo that won First Place overall, a black and white photo of children in the sun disturbed by the shadow of a badminton racket, was captured by Gellert Gombai with a camera that is probably older than its subjects: the iPhone X, released in 2017.

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In fact, only seven of the 40 photos that won in the major categories, without an honorable mention, were made with the iPhone 17 Pro or the current iPhone 17 Pro. iPhone 17 Pro Max.

“When we started, people were still figuring out what this device could do,” IPPAwards founder Kenan Aktulun said via email. “There was a real sense of exploration, of testing the limits of something new. Twenty years ago, that curiosity didn’t go anywhere, but it has matured. This year’s winners don’t show us what a phone can do. They show us what they can see. The work is quieter, more purposeful and more people.”

Competition rules state that photos must be shot using an iPhone or iPad and can be edited in Photoshop on a desktop computer, but can be edited using apps on the device. Photographs compete in 12 categories, including Abstract, Portrait, Landscape and Animals. Each candidate requires an entry fee of $9.50.

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On the IPPAwards website, each photo shows the type of iPhone used, the camera it was taken with and exposure details such as aperture, shutter speed and ISO value. So it’s impossible to know which photos were made using the built-in camera app versus a third-party app, or how much editing was used — all things we never considered when looking at the work of photographers using conventional cameras.

It’s still worth distinguishing photos taken with a phone, as the iPhone Photography Awards do. Phone cameras are always technically limited in terms of sensor size and lens quality compared to most traditional cameras (even sophisticated camera systems like Leitzphone).

But this collection reminds us of the words of another well-known expert. As food critic Anton Ego commented in the movie Ratatouille: “Not everyone can be a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.”

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To view the winners and honorable mentions, view the gallery below, then head to the IPPAwards site to view the entire 2026 collection.