Hold on, have Hasselblad Got an AI Image in their ‘Masters’ Photo Competition?
Looks pretty suspect to me.
T
here’s no escape from AI these days and generative images appear in every Facebook post, every small business advert, every staggeringly unfunny meme – but you’d have thought a competition run by a company like Hasselblad would be above such grubby little shortcuts, especially when the whole point of the contest is to celebrate the craft of real photography.
And yet, if you browse the ‘street’ category of the Hasselblad Masters 2026 website, you’ll find an image that doesn’t just look like AI, it looks like 2024 AI. Discovered by a member of the Photography subreddit, the thread is generating a decent volume of traffic.
There’s no name attached to the entry on the Hasselblad website, so it’s hard to do a background check, but even the most cursory inspection of this ‘photo’ should have caused alarm bells in the judging team’s WhatsApp group.
The most obvious ‘tell’ as far as I’m concerned is that bottle on the table. Have a look at this larger version of the image and zoom in. Is that ‘Coca Cola’ or ‘Rooter’? And what’s with that white packet on the table? Is that supposed to be a pack of cigarettes? And what in the name of all that’s holy is going on with her eye? Looks like a hole where her pupil should be.
Checking the rules for this competition and we can see that Hasselblad specifically rule out the use of AI. So did they bother to check any of this stuff, or just wave everything through?
2.7.8. Entrants must ensure the authenticity of the submitted information and the originality of the entries. If they submit false information or use AI synthesis, they will be disqualified and bear the corresponding consequences.
Looking at the judging panel we have such luminaries as the Director Of Photography at National Geographic, the Managing Photographer Metropolitan Museum Of Art, the Photography Consultant And Fmr. Global Education Director at Magnum Photos(!) and the Managing Editor of Aperture Magazine, although admittedly he looks like he’s about 14 years old and has therefore never known a world without AI images. But did none of these so-called photography experts flag this image as potentially dodgy?
With a Hasselblad X2D II 100C, two XCD Series lenses, a creative fund of EUR 5,000, and an opportunity for the work to be published in the Hasselblad Masters book – these prizes aren’t to be sniffed at.
What do you reckon? Have Hasselblad lost the plot or is that a kosher photo?
Also published in RAW & Unfiltered on Substack.
