There's a particular kind of photograph that only a curious animal and a very wide-angle lens can produce together.
German photographer Marcel Ohneberger's giraffe portrait is exactly that: an enormous, looming head fills most of the frame, its neck curving away into a distant landscape of grassland and hills, while a single dark eye stares down the lens.
The image has earned Ohneberger an Honorable Mention in the 2026 iPhone Photography Awards, now in its 19th year and one of the longest-running smartphone photography competitions in the world.
Technical approach
Ohneberger shot the image on an iPhone 13, using the device's back dual wide camera at its 1.54mm focal length (roughly 13mm equivalent in full-frame terms). That ultra-wide angle of view is the key to the entire photograph.
At such a short focal length, getting close to a subject produces dramatic perspective distortion, exaggerating whatever is nearest the lens while pushing everything else into the distance.
Here, the giraffe's nose and eye balloon toward the viewer, while its body and legs shrink dramatically at the far end of the frame.
The rest of the settings are unremarkable by design: 1/720 sec, f/2.4 and ISO32.
That fast shutter speed suggests bright daylight conditions, freezing any movement from the giraffe as it leaned in toward the camera, while the low ISO indicates plenty of available light, keeping the image clean and detailed.
There's no artificial manipulation required here; just the iPhone's fixed wide-angle lens doing what it does best at close range.
Why it works
The real skill in this image lies not in the settings but in the moment itself. Giraffes are naturally curious animals, and getting one to approach a handheld phone closely enough to fill the frame like this takes patience, calm behaviour, and a bit of luck.
Ohneberger's positioning – low and close, angled up slightly into the giraffe's face – turns an everyday wildlife encounter into something closer to a caricature, emphasizing the animal's improbable proportions and giving the photograph a sense of humour that straight telephoto shots rarely achieve.
The exaggerated curve of the neck, stretching back toward a grazing landscape dotted with acacia-style trees and distant hills, adds a sense of scale and place even as the foreground dominates the composition.
It's a reminder that ultra-wide lenses, often associated with landscapes and architecture, can be just as effective for animal portraiture when you get close enough.
The big picture
This year's IPPAwards drew thousands of entries from more than 140 countries, with winners selected across 12 categories including Animals, Nature, Portrait, and Landscape.
The overall Grand Prix, Photographer of the Year, went to Robyn Jensen of the Cayman Islands for a nature image shot on iPhone 15 Pro, while Gellert Gombai of Hungary took the Gold Award for an intimate candid portrait.
Ohneberger's giraffe portrait is a fitting entry in a competition built around the idea that strong photography depends less on kit and more on the eye behind it.
Shot on a phone that's now several generations old, it proves that a close encounter, good timing, and an understanding of wide lenses can produce something far more memorable than tech specs alone would suggest.
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