Real Photo wins AI contest

And gets disqualified

A photographer was disqualified from the 1839 Color Photography Awards after submitting a real photograph in the AI image category. Miles Astray's surreal photo of a flamingo won third place and the People’s Vote Award, deceiving judges from prestigious institutions like The New York Times, Getty Images, Phaidon Press, Christie’s, and Maddox Gallery.

© Miles Astray, F L A M I N G O N E, 2024

The rapid advancement of text-to-image models has led to impressive AI-generated images, causing several photography contests to mistakenly award AI images. Notably, the Sony World Photography Awards gave Boris Eldagsen a prize in the Creative category of the 2023 Open competition.

© Boris Eldagsen, The Electrician, 2022

Astray's entry marks a unique victory for traditional photography over AI, as he becomes the first photographer to win an AI image contest. This incident highlights the challenges judges face in distinguishing between real and AI-generated images.