Photographers from around the world submitted their best photos for the Shot on iPhone Challenge. The ten winning photos were subsequently displayed on billboards in various cities, in Apple Stores, and online. They were taken with different iPhone models, ranging from the iPhone XS Max to the iPhone 7, and offer a good impression of the iPhone camera’s image quality.
The winners come from countries including Singapore, Germany, Belarus, Israel, and the US, showing that people from around the world entered the competition.
The members of our international jury—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—explain why they found these particular photos so special.
Shot on iPhone Challenge – The Winners
Alex Jiang (US), iPhone XS Max
Chen Man: “The colors in this photo are beautiful, and the composition tells a story. When you zoom in, you see all kinds of unexpected details. The basketball hoop in the center adds another layer to the story.”
Annet de Graaf: “The narrative element of architecture. Behind the facade of an ordinary apartment building in an unknown city, countless lives are unfolding. Vibrant colors, too, and a perfect composition with that basketball backboard in the center! Very well spotted.”
Blake Marvin (US), iPhone XS Max
Austin Mann: “This photo required a lot of patience and perfect timing … thanks to the lack of shutter lag on iPhone and the Smart HDR feature, we can see both the raccoon’s eyes and the shadows inside the hollow tree trunk… something that previously would have been almost impossible using only natural light.”
Phil Schiller: “That look from this mischievous raccoon is priceless! He seems to be saying, ‘If you slowly turn around and walk away now, nobody gets hurt.’ The choice of black and white, the sharply focused raccoon, and the inside of that hollow tree trunk create a wonderful image of this remarkable moment.”
Darren Soh (Singapore), iPhone XS Max
Phil Schiller: “A reflection that looks like a painting. Two worlds come together here. You immediately wonder where this photo was taken and, above all, how. The bird in the corner is the only sign of life in this otherwise completely surreal composition.”
Chen Man: “The distortion and the reflection at an unusual angle give the viewer a very distinctive feeling.”
Nikita Yarosh (Belarus), iPhone 7
Austin Mann: “I love how accessible this image is: you do not have to travel to Iceland to capture something beautiful, because beauty is all around you. The intersecting lines, the vivid color, the old combined with the new … simply a great photo.”
Luísa Dörr: “I really like the simplicity of this photo. The composition, the light, the details ... everything looks right. Until your eye catches that one irregular line. I immediately wondered what had happened, where this was, and who had been here. To me, a photo is only truly good when it not only contains a strong or beautiful image but also makes you think and then stays with you.”
Dina Alfasi (Israel), iPhone X
Sebastien Marineau-Mes: “Simply beautiful, that heart-shaped puddle surrounding the person. You get a glimpse of the world at the moment the person enters the frame.”
Brooks Kraft: “A unique perspective and a fresh angle on a frequently seen subject: reflections. I especially like that you immediately see what the subject is, but not how the photo was made. The puddle is heart-shaped and creates beautiful symmetry around the person. This photo is possible thanks to the depth of field that iPhone produces in standard photo mode. With a DSLR, it would have been difficult to keep everything in focus.”
Elizabeth Scarrott (US), iPhone 8 Plus
Brooks Kraft: “A portrait that shows a child’s sense of wonder in a beautiful setting. A magnificent composition that reveals both the girl’s character and her perception of her surroundings.”
Pete Souza: “A beautiful portrait and good use of the background to provide more context. The child’s face is perfectly positioned, so the background is not distracting at all. And the setting looks very familiar to me: I have probably stood in exactly the same place. Yet despite having seen countless photos taken from this spot, I have never seen this particular image before.”
Andrew Griswold (US), iPhone XS
Jon McCormack: “This image is very well conceived and superbly executed. The background pattern holds everything together, and its repetition in the water droplets makes the image exciting. The creative use of depth of field is exceptionally accomplished here.”
Sebastien Marineau-Mes: “A unique composition and a unique color palette that make full use of the strengths of iPhone XS. I find the background pattern fascinating because it reappears in the water droplets in a different, distorted form. I notice myself trying to work out exactly what I am looking at and what kind of pattern it is.”
Bernard Antolin (US), iPhone XS
Kaiann Drance: “This looks like a very simple landscape photo, but the excellent choice of black and white gives it an entirely different impact. It brings out the dramatic contrast between the clouds and the landscape much more clearly.”
Adi Darmawan (US), iPhone XS
Luísa Dörr: “To me, this landscape resembles a portrait of an older person. The lines of the mountain landscape remind me of a wrinkled face. People have been drawing portraits and landscapes for a very long time. Somehow, they connect with something in our subconscious, and that is why this photo appeals to me: it contains an element I cannot explain.”
Robert Glaser (Germany), iPhone 7
Kaiann Drance says: “Fantastic dynamic range. There is detail in the meadow, trees, and clouds. A beautiful deep sky and pleasing color overall.”
Read also: The Best iPhone Photos of 2026
