In an age of filters, polished travel shots and artificial intelligence images that make every landscape look impossibly perfect, Icelandair decided to look for the opposite: the worst photographer in the world.
The national airline of Iceland launched a campaign called “The Real Unreal,” built around a simple idea. Iceland’s landscapes are so extraordinary, the company argued, that even someone with no talent behind a camera could still capture something memorable.
Instead of recruiting influencers or professional photographers, Icelandair published a manifesto against fake-looking travel imagery and invited people around the world to prove just how badly they could take a picture.
The response was far bigger than expected. According to the airline, 127,642 people from 176 countries applied for the title. Women made up a slight majority of applicants, at 52.2%, and the candidates ranged in age from 21 to 85.
Applicants were asked to answer a short questionnaire and could also submit a 60-second audition video explaining why their lack of photographic ability made them the perfect candidate.
The prize was not a joke. The winner receives $50,000, along with a planned 10-day summer trip across Iceland, including flights, accommodation, transportation and expenses paid by the airline. Icelandair described the real bonus as “worldwide fame as the person paid to do what everyone says they are bad at.”
The judges then faced a difficult task: reviewing thousands of images that were deliberately bad. Icelandair said the judging team spent more than 2,000 hours going through the submissions before narrowing the field to 13 finalists.
From there, one woman stood out.
The winner was Blanche Mortemard, a French woman from the Paris suburbs who shares an apartment with her twin brother and, by her own admission, has no real interest in photography. In her application, she listed her greatest weakness as “photography” and her greatest strength as “living in illusions.”
Her winning “portfolio” showed what Icelandair called an admirable lack of basic photographic skill. It included a picture from Oslo almost entirely blocked by her thumb, and a photo of the Statue of Liberty that judges described as looking like “a silver smudge on an even blurrier background.”
The airline said Montmard was chosen for her “admirable lack of skill and basic knowledge of photography,” as well as her authentic personality and love of adrenaline. She has reportedly gone skydiving 20 times.
“For years, friends and family have asked why my photos always look disappointing,” Montmard said after her win. “I’m excited that I finally have an answer: I was simply training for this role. This project celebrates imperfection, and this is probably the only photography contest I ever had a chance of winning.”
She added: “I will document Iceland with the confidence of a professional photographer, but with the skills of someone who definitely is not one. If Iceland can survive my photography, it can survive anything.”
The campaign was designed to push back against the increasingly artificial look of travel content online. Icelandair said it wanted to restore a sense of authenticity to tourism images at a time when more and more photos appear too edited, too perfect or not entirely real.
The company’s message was that Iceland does not need filters. Its glaciers, volcanoes, waterfalls and wide-open landscapes, Icelandair said, can do the work even when the person holding the camera has no idea what they are doing.
Montmard’s trip will not remain private. Starting Thursday, June 25, Icelandair is launching a social media series called “Diary of a Really Bad Photographer” on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
Followers will be able to watch in real time as Montmard tours Iceland and tries to document the country’s landscapes.
The question, Icelandair says, is simple: Which will win, Iceland’s beauty or Blanche’s complete lack of talent?