Icelandair, Iceland’s national airline, launched an unusual campaign called The Real Unreal to push back against overly polished and artificial travel imagery in the age of filters and AI-generated scenery. Instead of hiring influencers or professionals, it publicly searched for “the world’s worst photographer,” arguing that Iceland’s landscapes are so striking that even a hopeless photographer could still produce impressive pictures.
The prize was $50,000 and a planned 10-day summer trip around Iceland, with flights, lodging, transport, and expenses covered by the airline. Icelandair said the real bonus was “global fame as the person who gets paid to do what everyone says they are bad at.” The company said the campaign was meant to restore authenticity to travel photos at a time when images often look too perfect, heavily edited, or entirely fake.
Interest in the contest was enormous, with 127,642 applications from 176 countries. Women made up a slight majority, 52.2 percent, and applicants ranged from 21 to 85 years old. Candidates filled out a short questionnaire and could submit a 60-second audition video explaining why their lack of skill made them ideal. Judges spent more than 2,000 hours reviewing the submissions before narrowing the field to 13 finalists.
The winner was Blanche Montemard, a French woman from the suburbs of Paris who shares an apartment with her twin brother. She said her biggest weakness was “photography” and her biggest strength was “living in fantasies.” Her portfolio included an Oslo photo almost completely blocked by her thumb and a Statue of Liberty image that judges described as a “silver smear on an even blurrier background.” Icelandair praised her “admirable lack of skill and basic photographic knowledge,” along with her authentic personality and love of adrenaline, noting that she has already done 20 skydives.
Montemard said friends and family had long asked why her photos always looked disappointing, and she was relieved to finally have an answer. “I trained for this role,” she said, adding that the project celebrates imperfection. Icelandair will turn the trip into a social media series, “Diary of a Really Bad Photographer,” starting Thursday, June 25, 2026, on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.
