Smartphone Wildlife Photographer Disqualified Over 'Professional' Image

Steve Scott Grogin's photograph of an alligator's eye was removed from the Mobile Phone category at the 35 Awards due to suspicions that it was taken with professional equipment. Grogin maintains that he used a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra in Expert RAW format. To capture images of alligators, frogs, snakes, and other swamp creatures in Florida and Michigan, he employs an extendable selfie stick and a Bluetooth remote for low-angle shots. Grogin emphasizes the importance of fieldcraft—understanding animal behavior and leveraging his phone's compact size for unique perspectives. He retains original RAW files to counter claims of his work being fake or AI-generated, with one image of stacked young alligators confirmed authentic through a 200-megapixel RAW file. Despite the controversy, Grogin placed in the top 100 for mobile and wildlife photography at the 35 Awards.