Here are the impressive winners of the 2013 iPhone Photography Awards

When we first heard about an annual awards competition for iPhone photography, we were a little skeptical. There's so much iPhoneography out there these days and so much of it is…meh.

But the iPhone Photography Awards is a legit contest and the winning images for the 2013 competition are impressive. The ground rules for entering are pretty simple: all images need to be taken with an Apple iPhone, iPad or iPod, and photos cannot be altered by any computer desktop image editing program such as Photoshop.

You can, however, use any of the iPhone apps, including Hipstamatic, CameraBag and others but, in some cases, judges may ask to see the original images to verify they were actually captured with an Apple iOS device. Prizes include iPad Minis and actual "gold bars…from the most recognizable private gold mint in the world."

Whoa!

The iPhone Photography Awards competition has been running since 2007. Current categories include Photographer of the Year, Animals, Landscapes, Food (of course!), People, Nature, and others. If you want to enter next year's contest, the deadline is March 31, 2014, so get snapping!

Below is a selection of some of the 2013 iPhone Photography Awards winners. Learn more about the competition here.

(Via Neatorama)