Earlier this year, Icelandair launched a competition for a “really bad photographer.” The airline wanted someone truly terrible with the shutter at their fingertips to show the spectacular Icelandic scenery in its worst light, all as part of a tourism marketing stunt.
And after over 120,000 awful photographers answered the call, one stood out as being far worse than all the rest: French woman Blanche Mortemard.
She’s now back from her 10-day trip gallivanting around Iceland with an iPhone 17 Pro smartphone camera in hand – but no technique in mind – with the airline sharing her less-than-stellar camera roll for us all to see.
While the obvious flaw in this first image is the finger blocking out the top portion of the frame, there’s an equally glaring beginner error at play here. Mortemard has completely failed to isolate a clear subject, instead cramming everything she possibly could into the frame.
While she may have thought that she was capturing a beautiful landscape scene, to a more trained eye, the end result is a mashup of colors, objects and shapes with no real narrative anchored in a clear focal point.
This is arguably the number one error all beginner photographers make. But it’s one all beginners have to make many times in order to develop a stronger editorial eye capable of picking out a clear, story-infused scene.
It seems like Mortemard’s compositional skills improved slightly by the time she took this next shot, but not enough. While in this scene she’s done a better job at outlining a subject – the waterfall – she’s captured it from completely the wrong angle.
Looking at the photo, I’m not quite sure what the best angle would’ve been, as it’s hard to tell if the waterfall is within an inaccessible gully, or if it could be better seen from lower down.
Either way, scouting the area would have potentially helped her find a better composition. And if this really was the best angle, then I’d argue the shot was better not taken at all.
This final image was definitely worth taking, and I actually don’t have much to critique here. Overall, I think this is a nice shot, although I put it down to luck more than skill. No offense, Blanche…
What’s good about this scene is the way she used the curvature of the land to split the frame. There’s a nice amount of space dedicated to the cliff and the ocean, and the contrasting textures of the grass and waves look great to me.
If I had to be super picky, I’d say she could’ve waited for the bird to look directly at her, or gotten down lower, which wouldn’t have made it a more interesting portrait.
Something tells me that Blanche’s camera roll doesn’t contain too many shots like this following her trip, but I’m sure to her untrained eye it’s an absolute masterclass.
Not that she’ll care, though; along with the all-inclusive experience, Icelandair also paid their terrible photographer $50,000 (approximately £37,000 / AU$70,000) for her skills, or lack thereof.
Blanche’s candid images will now go on display at White Rabbit Studios, London, from September 11–12, where she’ll also give a live “artist” talk, on the second day. Tickets for the event will be available (for free) from 01 September at the exhibition webpage.
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