Check out these stunning winners of the 2019 iPhone Photography Awards

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but iPhone cameras have gotten really good. Like, really good. Nowhere is that more clear than in the winners’ circle at the 2019 iPhone Photography Awards. 

The annual smartphone photography competition announced its champions this week, giving accolades to both photos and photographers. The 12th edition of the iPhone Photography Awards produced some pretty stunning images, including the competition’s grand prize winner, “Big Sister.”

Image: Gabriella cigliano/apple

Grand prize winner Gabriella Cigliano took the photo on an iPhone X in Zanzibar. She didn’t know the two kids in the photo, but she said their “excitement was unexplainable” when they saw the image themselves.

“We couldn’t talk much, except for a few words in Swahili I had learned in the previous weeks, but those kids could definitely talk with their eyes,” Cigliano said. “It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in my life, and I’ll keep it in my memories forever.”

Apple has made huge advancements in iPhone camera tech in the last few years, with last year’s XS models in particular being praised for their excellent cameras. That said, plenty of the winning photos in this year’s competition were taken on older iPhones. 

For instance, the first place winner in the News/Events category was taken on an iPhone 6S. This is “Fire Dragon” by Lianyu Lu, which was taken in Meizhou, China.

The iPhone Photography awards have been around since 2007, which is also when the first iPhone came out. For a full list of winners, make your way over here. They’re separated into 18 categories (aside from the grand prize winners) with three winners in each category, so there’s plenty of gorgeous photography to peruse if you’re a fan of that sort of thing.

The fact that plenty of the winners were taken on older iPhones also goes to show that the skill of the photographer matters more than the device they took the photo with. Congratulations to everyone involved.