The iPhone Photography Awards named a shot of Guatemala’s Fuego volcano its 2026 grand prix winner, drawn from thousands of entries submitted from more than 140 countries.
Photographer Robin Jensen made the image from the town of Yepocapa, which sits at the base of the volcano, known locally as the Fire Volcano, and has been repeatedly destroyed or partially destroyed by its eruptions. The IPPAwards, which began in 2007, is one of the oldest international mobile photography competitions.
Fuego is almost constantly active, with small gas explosions and ash emissions occurring every 15 to 20 minutes. In March 2025 it ejected an ash column 65 kilometres high.
Children
The best-in-category for children went to a black-and-white image titled “Wonder” by Crystal Rountree, showing a girl facing an oncoming wave with wide eyes full of amazement and playful apprehension. The organizers said the image’s interplay of soft natural light and precise shadow work transforms a simple facial expression into a piercing reflection on human curiosity, and described its depth of field as remarkable. They said Rountree’s ability to convey subtle emotions while maintaining a refined aesthetic was evidence of outstanding photographic intuition.
Animals
Peter Crom won his competition category with an entry featuring two alert dogs. Crom said he spent his childhood in Australia working with wild animals alongside ballet training, then performed professionally with dance companies in Denmark, England, Ireland and Japan, and now works in nature conservation in the United Kingdom alongside photography, literature and pilates.
Rashid Sheriff, a resident of Kerala, India, spent 18 years working as an auto electrician in Qatar before returning to photography after smartphones closed the quality gap with professional cameras. His competition entry showed camels at Rawdat Rashid, a small oasis in central Qatar. Sheriff said he prefers shooting animals from a low angle or at eye level because it lets viewers understand them better, and that his phone allows him to capture beautiful, spontaneous moments with precision even when they happen unexpectedly.
Polish marketing communications specialist Yola Wonsch entered a portrait of a grey horse, while British photographer Kizzy Whittingham captured a primate family in their daily routine, one asleep as another kept watch.
Still life and architecture
American Catherine Wang, a specialist in still life photography, said the genre allows her to appreciate the simple but deep beauty of objects that surround us in everyday life, revealing through texture, colour and form the unique character of inanimate subjects from fruit and flowers to antiques and everyday items.
Australian photographer Glenn Homann’s architectural entry drew praise from the jury, which described his work as a testimony to a photographer’s ability to find calm in the urban flow, and said the photograph reminded viewers that an image transmits not so much the visible as the atmosphere of a fleeting, perfect moment.
Chinese photographer Peihao Zhang’s image of Tokyo Skytree, the world’s tallest broadcast tower at 634 metres, achieved wide circulation on Japanese social media. Zhang added red frames graduating toward darker shades, producing an unusual geometric view of the structure.
Landscape and abstract
Chinese photographer Weikai Chen depicted two riders crossing the mountain passes of Tekes county on the slopes of the Tian Shan range. Austrian television and film presenter and producer Christian Horgan submitted a feather close-up in blue-steel and slate-grey tones arranged in a near-scalloped rhythm, distinguished by a single small red-orange feather at the bottom of the frame.
Barry Mace entered an image of frost on a car windshield alongside a wiper and a red body panel. The organizers said the work illustrated that it is not necessary to travel somewhere exceptional to create a special image, because a familiar object captured in a certain way can stop being what it is and become a pattern of lines, shapes and colours.
Honourable mentions
Russian portrait and art photographer Anna Kozerod received an honourable mention from the jury, as did Yulia Zyrina, a post-Soviet photographer who has lived in the Netherlands for more than a decade and focuses on family life and the everyday poetry of childhood. The organizers noted that Zyrina had been among the prizewinners in the 2025 edition of the competition.
