OPPO Photography Awards 2026

OPPO Photography Awards 2026 puts smartphone image-making on an unusually broad international stage, with a top cash prize of $20,000 and six categories spanning portraits, spontaneous moments, travel, telephoto work, Live Mode and video. The main competition opened on April 21 and remains open until December 31, 2026. Participation is free, placing it among the free photo contests available to eligible smartphone photographers this year.

The defining condition is the device itself. Entries must be original photographs or videos created with OPPO, OnePlus or realme phones and must retain the required original data. For still images, light edits made on the phone are permitted, while desktop editing, composite images, AI-generated material and AI-altered content are excluded. Entrants can submit up to 20 entries in each category. Photographers using Deartline’s photo contest calendar will find a competition built specifically around mobile photography.

The awards combine expert judging with regional selection and public voting. Global winners are due to be announced between February and March 2027, while the Regional Awards and Audience’s Choice are scheduled for late November 2026. Eligibility is worldwide for qualifying users aged 18 or above, or the legal age in their region, although participation is currently unavailable in several specified countries and territories.

Prizes

The main awards extend beyond a single overall winner, combining top global prizes with category, regional and public-vote awards.

• Gold Award: One winner receives $20,000.
• Silver Award: Two winners receive $8,000 each.
• Bronze Award: Three winners receive $3,000 each.
• Honorable Mention, photography: Three winners in each of the five photo categories receive $1,000 each.
• Honorable Mention, video: Three winners in the video category receive $1,500 each.
• Regional Award: Two winners are selected in each of five regions, with each receiving $1,000.
• Audience’s Choice: Four entries selected through public voting receive $500 each.

Prize money is paid in dollars to the winner’s personal account and is stated before tax. The structure makes the competition particularly relevant to photographers comparing cash prize photography competitions focused specifically on phone-based image-making.

Categories or Themes

Six categories define the OPPO Photography Awards main competition, with five dedicated to photography and one to video.

• SUPER ME: Portraits and photographs centered on the authentic character, emotions, personality and inner world of people.
• SUPER SNAP: Spontaneous and unexpected moments in which action, light and emotion come together in a decisive instant.
• SUPER JOURNEY: Places and cultures encountered while traveling, including landscapes, architecture and local customs.
• SUPER LIVE: Motion captured using Live Mode, turning brief actions or changing scenes into dynamic memories.
• SUPER ZOOM: Telephoto photography that uses distance, compressed perspective and isolated details as part of the image.
• SUPER VIDEO: Short films, vlogs and other visual stories created through video.

The categories give the awards crossover with portrait photography contests, travel photography competitions and other genre-based calls, while keeping the smartphone capture requirement central throughout.

Dates and Entry Fees

The OPPO Photography Awards runs for more than eight months, alongside shorter monthly contests with their own themes.

There is no entry fee. Monthly contests generally run for one or two months around a designated theme, and entries submitted to those contests are automatically included in the main competition without needing to be submitted again. This also places the awards among free photography competitions with multiple entry routes during the year.

How to Enter

Main Competition entries are submitted through the official OPPO Photography Awards website. Entrants can submit up to 20 entries per category. A photographic entry may contain between one and nine photographs, while SUPER LIVE and SUPER VIDEO entries consist of one file each.

Monthly Contest submissions may also be made through the competition website, designated public posts on Instagram or TikTok using the required hashtags, or through specified OPPO Community threads.

About the Jury

The global jury combines photographers, visual-culture specialists, media professionals and OPPO imaging executives. The published panel includes Norwegian art photographer and Hasselblad Master Tina Signesdottir Hult; Chinese photographer and Hasselblad Master Wang Jianjun; Warner Bros. Discovery executive Vikram Channa; Beijing Film Academy professor Zhu Jiong; OPPO Chief Product Officer Pete Lau; and OPPO Director of Imaging Cognition Joy Cheng.

For the principal awards, the organizing committee and preliminary judges first select entries for the final round. The expert jury then evaluates the finalists and determines the winners. Regional Awards are selected by the organizing committee, while the Audience’s Choice is determined through public voting on the official website.

Why Enter OPPO Photography Awards?

The strongest point of distinction is that smartphone capture is not treated as a side category. It defines the OPPO Photography Awards. The requirement to shoot with OPPO, OnePlus or realme devices, retain original data and avoid desktop processing places the emphasis on what can be achieved within a phone-based photographic workflow. That makes the awards especially specific among mobile photography competitions.

The prize structure also gives photographers several routes to recognition. An entry can move through the expert-juried global awards, qualify for regional consideration, or reach the Audience’s Choice public vote, depending on when and where it is submitted. For photographers comparing Deartline’s best photo contests to enter, this combination of substantial cash awards, six distinct creative categories and a dedicated international jury is the most relevant context for assessing the opportunity.

Rules and Copyright

We reviewed the official rules of the OPPO Photography Awards to summarize the key participation requirements, copyright terms and image usage conditions. Before entering, we recommend checking the complete rules published by the organizer.

Rules

Entrants must be OPPO, OnePlus or realme users aged 18 or above, or have reached the legal age applicable in their region, and must have full civil capacity. Participation is currently unavailable in Germany, the United States, Sudan, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Cuba and the Crimea region.

Still photographs must be original works captured with an eligible phone and contain full EXIF data. Light adjustments such as brightness and contrast made on the phone are accepted. Composite images, desktop edits using software such as Photoshop or Lightroom, and AI-generated or AI-altered content are not accepted.

Entries previously submitted to other photography competitions, including earlier or regional OPPO, OnePlus or realme contests, are ineligible. Works published through public media for profit or photographs that have already won awards elsewhere are also excluded.

Copyright and Image Usage

The original author retains copyright to submitted work and must legally hold the full rights without existing disputes. By entering, however, the photographer gives OPPO Photography Awards and its affiliates the right to use, display and edit the work worldwide for activities connected with the awards and for promotional purposes, both online and offline.

The organizer states that entries may be used for these related purposes without further consent. The FAQ does not specify a fixed duration for those rights or expressly describe the license as exclusive or non-exclusive.

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For more information and to participate in the contest, visit: the official website.