‘World’s Worst Photographer’ Publishes Her Images From Iceland

Blanche Mortemard

The “really bad photographer’ who scored $50,000 and a 10-day trip to Iceland thanks to her terrible photos has revealed the images she took during her visit to the country.

French woman Blanche Mortemard beat off 127,624 other self-confessed bad photographers to win the awesome prize after showing the judges from Icelandair her blurry photos of the Statue of Liberty and wonky photos of Norway.

Mortemard recently finished her Iceland tour, a trip many photographers dream of, that saw her travel 1,500 miles through the Nordic country. Over that time, she took over 5,484 photographs — 61 of them with an accidental finger in the frame.

Blanche Mortemard

Blanche Mortemard

“The results you’re seeing are as close to Blanche’s experience as it gets. And entirely hers. That’s what the really bad photographer project is all about. It’s part experiment, part reassurance, and part celebration of something we could all use a little more of: reality as it is,” says Icelandair.

As well as 61 of her images containing a finger or thumb, 462 of them were shaky or blurry and 282 of them featured unidentifiable objects.

Blanche Mortemard

Of course, the point of all this is to prove that no matter how bad the photographer is, they can still take a great image of Iceland, a country’s renound for its natural beauty.

In fact, Icelandair wants to use one of Mortemard’s images on billboards across the world. Of the nearly five and a half thousand images that Mortemard took, the company selected two images. Taking the RAW files, the airline applied minimal edits — contrast and color mainly — to two images that will be displayed large.

“We followed the World Press Photo editing rules: photographs can be processed, but the content of the image should remain unchanged, and color, contrast, and other adjustments should not misrepresent what was captured,” Icelandair says. The company even linked to the RAW files for “photography boffins” to inspect closely.

“No dramatic skies. No perfect turquoise water. No removing that stray person Blanche didn’t notice. And certainly, no rescuing her composition,” the company adds.

Mortemard will also be exhibiting her work in London next week and will even give a talk about her photographic endeavors. It’s a free event in Shoreditch, and tickets are available here.

Image creditsPhotographs by Blanche Mortemard