The 13th Annual iPhone Photography Awards

Dimpy Bhalotia, Flying Boys, Varanasi, India

This is the Grand Prize winner in the recent 13th Annual iPhone Photography Awards.

I was struck by its similarity to several photographs I know, perhaps none more so than this very significant one:

That's the Hungarian photographer Martin Munkácsi's "Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika," [not] taken on a Liberian beach [see below]. It's significant not only because it was one of Munkácsi's best-known photographs (it's on the cover of one of the better books about him), but because Henri Cartier-Bresson said it was responsible for giving him direction. Here—translated, I assume—is one quote: "I suddenly understood that photography can fix eternity in a moment. It is the only photo that influenced me. There is such intensity in this image, such spontaneity, such joie de vivre, such miraculousness, that even today it still bowls me over."

(There are various quotes. He talked about the picture on numerous occasions.)

If you'd like to see the other winners in the iPhone photography contest, here's a link to veteran photography writer Olivier Laurent's article about the contest in The Washington Post, which will provide a sampling, and here's a link to the Awards website for a deeper dive. 

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Please help The Online Photographer through Patreon

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Richard Parkin: "How can it be Lake Tanganyika and Liberia? I think the former is correct and the latter waaaay out, probably a thousand miles or three.  :-)  "

Mike replies: Sorry. Evidently the confusion goes way back. Munkacsi sometimes titled the picture "Liberia, 1930," and apparently he took it when he was on assignment for a magazine and was supposed to be documenting the changes in Liberia in the 20th century. But it wasn't published as part of the assignment—it first saw the light of day in a different magazine a year or so later. Apparently then he began admitting that it was taken at Lake Tanganyika.

But I shouldn't have repeated something I read hastily. My bad.

Comments

[hugh crawford]

Reminds me of Aaron Siskind’s series “Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation”

[Richard Tugwell]

Striking image, although I have to say after a while it's a little bit sterile for my liking. I think H C-B points out the difference well. Although less dramatic, for me there is more humanity in Munkácsi's image

[Albert Smith]

Nice captures... do check out the runners up.

I'm always late to the party, or the last to adapt. I carried "real" cameras around the world for 50-plus years and I never felt phone cameras were anything but a sketch pad until you could come back with a true photographic tool.

Lately, I've discovered how useful my (android) camera can be, especially with the already built in editing tools that I didn't know existed. I was out with my Fujifilm Xpro2 and 35mm lens and came upon a scene that screamed for a wide angle. Just for the record shot, I snapped with my phone until I could return with my 16mm (24mm-e). I was surprised how good the phone did, and even more so when I found the editing capability.

I still can't see the phone screen without putting on my cheaters or when the sun is at certain angles, but I'm using my phone as a camera more often.

[Ross]

I expect that you have just copied the phrase 'taken on a Liberian beach', as it is commonly used in describing that photograph, but in fact Lake Tanganyika is several thousand miles from Liberia, so either the phrase is incorrect, or the title of the photograph is.

[Lynn]

It's a very nice shot but I prefer Munkacsi's. What interests me is the wave in Munkacsi's picture - it's not the sort of wave I'd expect to see on a lake shore, even a large (albeit skinny) lake like Lake Tanganyika. But since Munkacsi says it was taken there, I guess it was.

...and just to show what a rabbit hole the internet is, when I went looking for waves in Lake Tanganyika I came across Schistosomiasis - a good reason to stay out of the water!

[louis mccullagh]

Anyone else think about how photos of naked children are ok if they are poor or not white but outrageous if they are white. Its always seemed to me to be a racist thing and still applies in todays newspapers and media.
I am not trying to argue nudity is wrong just how we in western society view it.