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For most photography competitions, inexplicably blurry horizons, wonky framing and accidental thumbprints are immediate grounds for disqualification.
For Icelandair, they’re the entire brief.
After launching a viral global search for the “world’s worst photographer” earlier this year, Iceland’s national airline has finally crowned its champion – and no, it’s not Brooklyn Beckham (if you know, you know).
Blanche Mortemard from Paris beat an astonishing 127,642 applicants from 178 countries to secure the gloriously backhanded title, impressing the judges “with her admirable lack of skills and knowledge of basic photography.”
Her winning portfolio included a snowy cityscape of Oslo, in which a rogue thumb claims roughly 20% of the frame, a poorly exposed, blurry photograph taken in the approximate direction of the Statue of Liberty, and an image of a seagull on a lamp post, awkwardly sharing the frame with what appears to be an ear lobe.
Just remarkable work. Truly. Take a look for yourself:
Mortemard is taking her new-found title in her stride: “For years, friends and family have asked why my photos always look disappointing. I’m thrilled to finally have an answer: I was training for this role. This project celebrates imperfection – probably the only photography competition I ever stood a chance of winning.”
The premise behind the campaign was simple. Iceland is so absurdly photogenic, Icelandair argued, that even someone with a supernatural talent for taking terrible photographs would struggle to make it look bad.
According to Icelandair, the response to the campaign was overwhelming.
“We’re thrilled to have finally found our bad photographer,” said Gísli S. Brynjólfsson, the global director of marketing for the airline. “This project has resonated across the globe because people are tired of manufactured perfection. We really admired people’s courage to embrace authenticity over fakery – that really stuck out among all applicants.”
As part of her new role, Mortemard will spend 10 days travelling around Iceland on a photography expedition designed to answer one question: Can one person be genuinely incapable of taking a good photo in one of the world’s most spectacular landscapes?
“I’ll be documenting Iceland with the confidence of a professional photographer and the skills of someone who definitely isn’t one. If Iceland can survive being photographed by me, it can survive anything!” Mortemard has said.
For her efforts, she’ll receive a tidy $50,000 fee covering her time, expenses and of course, her photographs. Iceland has been warned.