Would you believe these award-winning photographs were captured with an iPhone?

Cellphone photography has made great strides since its inception in the early 2000s. We’re no longer tied to dark rooms, expensive technical gear or cheap disposable cameras to capture our favorite Kodak moments.

The 7th annual iPhone Photography Awards — the first and longest-running competition of its kind — has been celebrating the art of “iPhoneography” ever since the first iPhone came out in 2007. For photos to be eligible, they must be taken with an iPhone, iPad or iPod, and they can only be edited using Apple store apps — no Photoshop allowed!

This year, the first-place award for Photographer of the Year goes to Julio Lucas of Bradenton, Florida, for his jaw-dropping shot of a lone hiker traversing the Perito Moreno Glacier at Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina’s Patagonia region (above).

Lucas explains the importance of the iPhone in relation to his larger work as a visual storyteller:

I enjoy taking photos with my iPhone due its portability and ease of use while on the move. iPhones naturally tend to saturate colors in the captured image. Which depending on the environmental lighting, the saturation of colors normally allows for a bold beautiful image. I generally try to stay away from using filters in my iPhone pictures. I want my photos to take on a more traditional form and grant the capture moment to tell the story rather then a manipulation of the moment by use of too many filters.“