Forget perfect compositions, flawless lighting, and Instagram filters. Blanche Mortemard, a photographer from Paris, has just been officially crowned the worst photographer in the world, beating out 127,642 other hopefuls who worked hard for the very same title. And the best part? She’s walking away with $50,000.
In most photography contests, inexplicably blurry horizons, crooked frames, and accidental thumbprints are grounds for immediate disqualification. For Iceland’s national carrier, Icelandair, however, those were exactly the qualities the judges were looking for.
The core idea behind the campaign was simple: Iceland is so photogenic that even someone with a real gift for taking terrible pictures would struggle to make it look bad.
The response to the campaign was overwhelming. “We are thrilled to have finally found our bad photographer,” said Gísli S. Brynjólfsson, the airline’s global marketing director. “This project resonated around the world because people are tired of manufactured perfection. We genuinely admired people’s courage to embrace authenticity over the fake — that’s what set the finalists apart.”
The Winning Portfolio
Mortemard came out on top among 127,642 candidates from 178 countries, impressing the judges with what was described as a remarkable absence of skill and understanding of the basic principles of photography.
Photo by. Blanche Mortemard
Her winning portfolio included a snowy urban landscape of Oslo in which an uninvited thumb takes up roughly 20% of the frame, a poorly lit, out-of-focus shot fired in the general direction of the Statue of Liberty, and a photo of a seagull perched on a light pole that awkwardly shares the frame with a human earlobe.
Photo by. Blanche Mortemard
“For years, my friends and family asked me why my photos always looked so disappointing. I’m thrilled to finally have an answer: I was training for this role. This project celebrates imperfection, and it’s probably the only photography contest I ever had a chance of winning,” Mortemard said.
The Assignment and the Prize
Mortemard will spend 10 days traveling across Iceland on a photography assignment designed to answer one question: Can a person truly be incapable of taking a good photo in one of the most spectacular landscapes on earth?
“I’ll be capturing Iceland with the confidence of a professional photographer and the skills of someone who is definitely not one. If Iceland can survive my photography, it can survive anything!” she said. For her efforts, she will receive $50,000, covering her time, expenses, and, of course, her photos.
