Soft red valleys, colored amber gems, snow crystals set in a blond hair. It is not the clumsy attempt to compose a hippy haiku, but the descriptions of some of the winning photos of the “Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge”, the photographic contest with which Apple rewards the best high-magnification images taken with the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max. The valleys are actually the petals of a flower, the buds of small sea slides and the blond hair the coat of a dog. That’s the beauty of macro photography: the closer you get to the subject, the further you get away from the context, creating a world starting from a tiny detail.
The winning photos of Apple’s Macro Challenge
Petals that look like valleys, snow crystals nestled in a lock of blond hair (but in reality it is a dog’s coat), a glass smoothed by the sea that resembles an amber crystal on a slightly psychedelic background. These are some of the magical and somewhat surreal shots that won Apple’s “Macro Challenge”, the photographic contest with which the Cupertino company rewards the best high-magnification photos taken with the iPhone 13 and 13 Pro Max. the 10 winners are also the Italian Marco Colletta, a twenty-two year old student of Mechanical Engineering from Taranto with a passion for photography. The photo of him shows the pistil of a hibiscus flower, immortalized by a few centimeters. “My favorite aspect of macro photography,” Colletta explains to Italian.Tech, “is the possibility of transforming most of the things I see into abstract subjects; it allows me to explore the world from a different and imaginative perspective”.
The “Macro Challenge” did not include a specific prize (apart from glory), but because Apple will also use the photos for commercial or promotional purposes, the 10 winners will be granted a license to use the image. In the past, the images of the photographic challenges were for example used by Apple for the urban blow-ups of the Shot on iPhone campaign.
The Italian winner
Among the images selected by Apple, most are nature photos. Drops of water, flowers and leaves are the most popular. The pistil of a red hibiscus flower is for example the subject of the winning photo taken by Marco Colletta, a twenty-two year old engineering student from Taranto with a passion for photography.
“What I like about macro photography is the possibility of transforming the things I see into abstract subjects or into something completely different,” Colletta tells Italian.Tech. “I took my picture in my backyard, in mid-January . I was looking for inspiration and the hibiscus caught my attention. I set the scene to bring the viewer into the flower, with a frame as enveloping as the petals of the flower. Hence the title “The Cave” , “The cave” “.
Colletta and the other nine winners don’t take home a real prize, like in a photo contest. Apple, however, will buy from each of them the license to use the image, which can then end up in digital galleries on the company’s website, on social networks, and then printed on the large billboards of the next global advertising campaign “Shot on iPhone”.
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Shot on iPhone
The selection of the ten photos lasted just over a month, during which the jury observed and judged images from all over the world. Among the jurors, alongside professional photographers such as Anand Varma (National Geographic Explorer) and Peter McKinnon, there was also Kaiann Drance, Apple’s Vice President of Worldwide iPhone Marketing.
“We have received tens of thousands of photos, from many countries around the world. In the jury we have judges who are photographers themselves, all with an international and varied background”, explains Drance in an exclusive interview with Italian.Tech. “To help them , together with me, there were several jurors who work for Apple, they know the iPhone camera well and are above all photographers and artists themselves. From this huge amount of photos we have chosen these ten that for us best represent the essence of macro photography and the potential of the iPhone 13 Pro camera “.
The winning photos of Apple’s Macro Challenge
Petals that look like valleys, snow crystals nestled in a lock of blond hair (but in reality it is a dog’s coat), a glass smoothed by the sea that resembles an amber crystal on a slightly psychedelic background. These are some of the magical and somewhat surreal shots that won Apple’s “Macro Challenge”, the photographic contest with which the Cupertino company rewards the best high-magnification photos taken with the iPhone 13 and 13 Pro Max. the 10 winners are also the Italian Marco Colletta, a twenty-two year old student of Mechanical Engineering from Taranto with a passion for photography. The photo of him shows the pistil of a hibiscus flower, immortalized by a few centimeters. “My favorite aspect of macro photography,” Colletta explains to Italian.Tech, “is the possibility of transforming most of the things I see into abstract subjects; it allows me to explore the world from a different and imaginative perspective”.
The “Macro Challenge” did not include a specific prize (apart from glory), but because Apple will also use the photos for commercial or promotional purposes, the 10 winners will be granted a license to use the image. In the past, the images of the photographic challenges were for example used by Apple for the urban blow-ups of the Shot on iPhone campaign.
This year’s challenge is the third organized by Apple. In 2019 the topic was open and you could send photos of all kinds. In 2020 the company focused instead on photos taken at night with the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro, while in 2021 the contest did not take place, replaced by a collection of “shot on iPhone” photographs and videos selected directly by Apple.
“In addition to the challenges, we also have a” Shot on iPhone “campaign always active on our Instagram channel, with which we promote the best images and videos made with iPhone discovered by our team”, says Drance. “For us the purpose, both with the challenge both with campaigns, is to encourage and inspire our users to explore the world of photography and video thanks to the power of their iPhone, a very powerful creative tool that they always carry in their pocket “.
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Why macros
The choice to focus this year’s photo contest on macro photography serves to promote the new camera integrated into the ultra-wide sensor of the iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max. The addition of a high-magnification photo mode on the smartphone is not a Apple prerogative, and indeed other manufacturers have arrived there well in advance. But as often happens in the case of the Cupertino company, the “how” was more important than the “when”.
“Bringing new features to us is a choice based on what can improve our users’ experience. Up until now we haven’t been able to bring the macro to the iPhone because we didn’t have the right lens, with the proper aperture,” says Drance. “But also because we wanted to make this form of photography simple and immediate, and for this we had to develop the right interface. High-quality macro photos usually require special, voluminous and expensive photographic equipment: with the iPhone 13 and 13 Pro Max we succeeded to simplify this art form, with a quality that lives up to our expectations and with the hope that many more users can access this creative form.
Photography as an art form
After all, not only technicians and engineers work in the team that deals with the development of the iPhone cameras. It is a team that also includes a good number of art directors, photographers and professional creatives such as Arem Duplessis, Billy Sorrentino, Pamela Chen, all part of the macro challenge jury.
“For us it’s not just the race for features that counts, because we have a huge respect for photography as an art form,” concludes Kaiann Drance. “Our goal with every new iPhone is to find the right balance between performance and creativity, to to allow as many people as possible to discover photography and its emotional potential, whether it is to save a memory with the family or to shoot the next cover of a famous magazine “.