The 2025 Huawei XMAGE Awards Ceremony and “The World, You and Me” annual imaging exhibition opened on November 12 at Paris’ Grand Palais, marking the latest collaboration between Huawei and Paris Photo. The event brings together creators, industry figures, and photography enthusiasts, positioning mobile photography within a broader artistic context rather than treating it solely as a technological achievement.
Paris Photo, founded in 1997, is one of the world’s major photography gatherings, attracting well over 100,000 visitors each year. Huawei has partnered with the event before, in 2018 and 2019, but this is the first time the company has participated since formally establishing its XMAGE branding — an effort presented not just as a shift in camera technology, but as an attempt to frame mobile photography as a platform for visual storytelling. Company representatives emphasized this cultural focus in their remarks, noting that imaging tools increasingly shape how people observe and interpret their surroundings.
The exhibition adopts the theme “The World, You and Me,” with three sections — “I Capture, Therefore I Am,” “The Constructed, The Perceived,” and “In Their Own Words.” These groupings underline how personal perspective influences photographic work and how the medium now moves fluidly between documentation, interpretation, and narrative. Many of the showcased images explore the relationship between individuals and the environments they inhabit, with curators aiming to encourage dialogue among photographers from different regions and disciplines.
This year’s XMAGE Awards received more than 743,000 submissions from 78 countries and regions. The “XMAGE 100” — a selection of standout images — is presented without traditional category divisions, reflecting the competition’s interest in range rather than classification. Three Grand Prize winners were chosen, each accompanied by brief comments from the judging panel. The judges noted how mobile photography continues to evolve through the combination of optics and computational methods, allowing creators to work intuitively across scales and subjects. Other remarks highlighted the strength of everyday scenes captured without embellishment, as well as portraits shaped through restraint rather than heavy-handed interpretation.
The commentary underscores a broader theme that runs through the event: photography’s shift from merely recording what is seen to interpreting and perceiving the world with more intentionality. XMAGE’s organizers often frame mobile devices as tools that expand access to creative expression, enabling photographers to document moments that might otherwise go unnoticed. The exhibition presents these works as part of a wider conversation about how digital imaging can support connection, curiosity, and shared understanding in a visually saturated world.
