One of the contests held by 1839 Awards in 2024 was special in that submissions to it were to be generated by artificial intelligence rather than created with a camera. It was this contest that piqued the curiosity of a certain Miles Astray.

Instead of using an AI-generated picture like he was supposed to, Miles sent an actual photo of an actual flamingo that he took on the Dutch overseas territory of Aruba. The flamingo in question was hiding its head away from the camera, making it appear it did not have a head at all which is exactly the kind of thing that occasionally happens to AI-generated creatures. The judges appreciated the picture and so did the people visiting the 1839 Awards website; the submission won the third place in the category as well as the People’s Vote award.

Miles then disclosed the image's background on social media, claiming he did it all to prove that humans "can still beat the machine". Perhaps rather predictable results followed; his submission was deleted and the awards were revoked. As the CNN article explains, the judges felt it would not be right to steal awards from participants who played by the rules and submitted AI-generated pictures.

1839 Awards holds annual photography contests that are open to both professional and non-professional artists, with Getty Images and The New York Times employees among other experts as judges. Those wishing for better photo quality than smartphones can deliver will be served well by the compact Sony DSC-RX100 Gen 7 camera (from $1,290 on Amazon).