Apple’s latest ‘Shot on iPhone 6’ advertising campaign featuring crowdsourced iPhone photography from around the world is bound to reach massive audiences as the Cupertino firm started showcasing users’ best photos found online out in the real world. Specifically, Apple is hanging billboards on skyscrapers around the world, plastering them on bus stops and train stations.
In addition, the company is using the photos in minimalistic ads run in major magazines and newspapers. All told, the ad campaign features 77 photographers in 70 cities across 24 countries around the world.
Users report seeing these billboards across iconic locations around the world, including in Los Angeles, Dubai, Tokyo, Toronto, London’s Euston Square subway station and in the Malaysian city of Bangsar.
Photographer Julian Bialowas, one of the featured artists, has put together a running list of cities where the ads are popping up.
Most of the iPhone-centric photos were taken outdoors.
Seen top of post: a Los Angeles billboard showing off Beau Colburn’s photo.
The campaign is also running in major newspapers and magazines. Here’s a ‘Shot on iPhone 6’ ad on the back cover of The New Yorker magazine.
Check out an outdoor poster in Germany below, via Timothy.
This San Francisco billboard features a photo taken by Julian Bialowas.
Jimmy Grewal’s shot adorns a skyscraper in Dubai.
A few more examples found on Twitter.
Have you seen #Apple's new billboard in Bangsar? It showcases #iPhone6 photography. http://t.co/bJXUVIFv8j pic.twitter.com/ScPANpwx6H
— #KerajaanSukses (@vernieman) March 2, 2015
Hello Tokyo Apple billboard pic.twitter.com/R4t8yyAT76
— Cory Staudacher (@withhearts) March 2, 2015
they replaced my iPhone 6 billboard this morning with this wonderful picture of a mountain. still an Apple ad too pic.twitter.com/tXyHrb25Ca
— Deej (@deejdesign) March 2, 2015
Apple's 'Shot on iPhone 6' campaign is the nail in the coffin for Nokia. Camera was last thing they could brag about pic.twitter.com/q1fMdiBInH
— Liam Brennan (@LCBrennan) March 2, 2015
As mentioned before, Apple harvested these gorgeous photographs from around the web, looking for beautiful shots that were tagged as having been taken with its newest iPhones.
BuzzFeed News talked to some of the casual photographers who snapped up thesse photos, including Cielo de la Paz, an avid photographer “willing to wake up at five in the morning and hike 10 miles to get that shot of the sunrise.”
After taking a few shots of the reflection of her red umbrella on the wet concrete, she edited the image with Filterstorm Neue and uploaded the picture to Flickr, where Apple found it.
Now it’s one of the photos featured in Apple’s campaign.
Some of the photographers the campaign features are among Instagram’s most popular users, like Cole Rise who describes Apple’s mysterious process.
“An ‘un-named’ company had reached out to my photography rep looking for exceptional examples of photos taken on an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus,” he told TIME magazine.
“I spent a few days rummaging through the archives of photos taken on a variety of recent trips across the Northwest, selecting the 15 or so that told the best story,” he continued. “Learning that this company was in fact Apple was both a pleasant surprise and incredible honor, having carried every iPhone model since launch.”
Kicking off the campaign on March 1, Apple created a new spot on its homepage called World Gallery to showcase about sixty impressive photographs shot by users around the world on their iPhone 6.
“People take incredible photos and videos on iPhone 6 every day. And here are some of our favorites,” reads the webpage. “Explore the gallery, learn a few tips, and see what’s possible with the world’s most popular camera.”
In addition to the image gallery, the webpage highlights popular apps used to take and edit these snaps, including the default Camera app, Facebook-owned Instagram, Filterstorm Neue, Camera+, Afterlight, Adobe Photoshop Express and VSCO Cam, the latter used to edit many of the featured shots.
The iPhone camera has become a popular substitute for many people’s DSLRs. Last year, Apple overtook Nikon for the second place spot on Flickr, a photo sharing site owned by Yahoo.
The iPhone 5s is the most popular camera in the Flickr community, followed by the iPhone 5, Samsung’s Galaxy S4 and S5 and the iPhone 6.
If you spot Apple’s billboards in your town, please shoot us some snaps to tips@iDownloadBlog.com or share them down in the comment section and we’ll add them to this post.