Code symbol: in Paris, for the first time, awards were presented for AI in the work of photographers

Paris Photo, the world's largest photography exhibition, is taking place at the Grand Palais in Paris from November 13 to 16. Izvestia attended the event and became convinced of the growing trend towards the use of neural networks in photography. The award ceremony for the participants of the XMAGE Awards competition took place at the exhibition. This year, its organizers even established a separate category — "Experimental Laboratory", where photo and video works created using AI processing are presented. Who became the winner and why it is important for Russian culture — in the material of Izvestia.

Symbiosis of art and technology

The Paris Photo exhibition has consolidated the status of the world's largest event related to professional photography, art and image processing. This year it takes place at the site of the Grand Palais, also known as the Grand Palace. Technological innovations have become a key trend. The mobile photography competition XMAGE Awards was held as part of the exhibition, which highlighted the role of artificial intelligence technologies in creating qualitatively new images.

This competition has been held annually since 2017, and with its help Huawei celebrates outstanding art works - photos and videos created using devices and technologies of this brand. This year, for the first time, the organizers have included a new nomination — Experimental Lab. It featured projects in which the authors actively use the Master AI toolkit. This system allows you to combine objects from different images, perform spot editing and work with a multi-layered image structure.

This year, over 740,000 applications from 78 countries were submitted to the competition. The 100 best works were shortlisted, and winners were selected from it in several categories: "So Far, so close", "Color and Shade", "Faces", "Heartwarming World", "Action", "Storyboard".

The most interesting nominations were "Good Night" and "Experimental Laboratory". The first category evaluated images taken in the evening and at night — without new technologies, this category would not have been able to produce professional-level mobile photos taken without the use of expensive equipment.

The key works in the second category were "Water Drawing" by Chinese photographer Chen Yang, for which he drew patterns on the sand, and then added additional visual effects that give the water a sandy structure. In the "Blue Dance" photo, Ding Zhou combined green ink with the tiny figure of a dancer, and set a bird's-eye view.

A photographer from Nigeria, Nuanne Jason, impressed with the work "Reflection of Nature". The AI helped him paint his silhouette with colors, filling it with leaves and tree crowns. And Jian Xin-yuan turned the actor, filmed in the theater, into a vague figure, while maintaining clear silhouettes of the audience watching the Chinese actor in national clothes.

In the "Matrix Grid of the Field", Chen Guanghong took the logic of AI and superimposed several variants of the architectural ensemble at different times, creating a state of superposition. Peruvian photographer Carloman Macidiano Cespedes Riojas combined the frames of two different images: a dog and fried eggs. He called his work a French term: trompe-l'oeil, literally meaning "deception of vision."

Some of the photos, which also used Master AI technology, were submitted out of competition. Filipino Ron Velarde scored in the "Faces" category by creating a photo of a child wearing a helmet. He didn't like the shades in the photo, and with the help of AI, he removed all the colors except blue, which gives a sense of calm and safe space. Ken Farman from France added extra depth to the Japanese dance photo, which turned the photo into a rebus.

—The XMAGE competition demonstrates the power of image transfer technologies and helps to better understand the world and people," explained Kevin Ho, president of Huawei's consumer solutions division.

Slavic theme on Paris Photo

Romanian author Gheorghe Popa became one of the winners of the international competition. This man works as a pharmacist and is proud to say that he was born in the small town of Ayud in Transylvania.

His picture "Fantastic Lines" from the project "Poisoned Beauty" became one of three works that won the Grand Prix of the XMAGE award. For this, he used UAV photography, and then processed the photo using AI: edited the colors and added magical silhouettes, giving the image a surreal effect.

— In general, my project is an artistic protest against an environmental disaster. Abstract aerial photographs show the shapes that have arisen due to the release of chemicals interacting with natural factors - snow, rain, wind, — said the winner of many photo awards.

The second winner is Chen Guanghong. He went to Altai and photographed the whole family: grandfather Sulanbek and his granddaughter Elena, who live in Altai. It is called the "Snow Capital" all over the world, and the photographer masterfully conveyed the peculiarity of the region through the girl's stoicism and her loyalty to national roots.

— This picture conveys the connection between two random passers-by. A child on a snowy plain in a traditional Altai outfit. The photographer is restrained, does not project emotions, but emphasizes the individuality of the child," said Florence Bourgeois, director of Paris Photo and judge of the XMAGE Award.

The third work awarded the grand Prix of the competition was made by an ordinary farmer from Turkey named Mehmet Emin Koruts. His photo shows a man carrying a newborn calf away from a cow.

Symbols of Russian and Soviet culture were found everywhere — Coco Kapitan's book was on sale at the Louis Vuitton brand's travel guides stand, the author drove along the Trans-Siberian Railway and captured locations and residents of Russian regions. Side by side were books by the iconic Japanese photographer Keizo Kitajima about the rise of the USSR and the dark side of modern New York. Korean photographer Taemin Ha talks about the Soviet past in modern Mongolia in his photo book "süü", where Mongolian landscapes are juxtaposed with the text of the country's anthem in several languages.

Photography, technology, and books

Half of the exhibition was devoted to photography, the other half to books about them. But the most important aspect, in my opinion, was technology, without which the evolution of photography would have been impossible. The numerous stands in the Grand Palais are decorated in the spirit of digitalization, with interactive screens and various installations here and there. One of the stands is decorated in the form of a tree, to the branches of which various photo works are glued, some of them on miniature tablets. Another booth went even further, releasing all the photos on tiny screens, which are mosaically arranged in different corners, but together make up a large-scale field of different types of flowers. It's common to see a projection from a digital device instead of a framed photo on the wall.

Paris Photo Studio is distinguished not only by its scale, which makes it cramped even in the monumental walls of the Grand Palais. The weight of the event is given by the format of multiculturalism — an exhibition where a Chinese author gets his 15 minutes of fame thanks to a photo of an Altai child, and a Nigerian receives a prize for resourceful use of AI tools.

Against this background, it is hardly surprising that Russians will soon be able to touch this story, including the works of XMAGE participants, which will be presented at the Tretyakov Gallery as part of the Photo[Graphic] Journey exhibition. It will be held from November 20, 2025 to March 29, 2026, and will tell in more than 70 pictures about how the perception of tourism has changed over the century.