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Candid Street Photography

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Tests whether a model can produce a believable documentary photo instead of a polished render. The difficulty is in natural skin and lighting, wet-pavement reflections, and the imperfect framing and motion blur that real street photography has but models tend to smooth away.

Voters judged on
Photorealism Natural Skin Texture Wet-Surface Reflections Candid Framing
The brief Every model got the same prompt
Prompt
A candid street photo of an elderly Japanese man repairing a red bicycle in light rain, reflections on wet pavement, shallow depth of field, 50mm lens, natural skin texture, imperfect framing, motion blur from passing cars, cinematic but realistic, no stylization.
The leaderboard

Challenge rankings

57 models · ranked by blind vote

Through time: how it evolved
1
GPT Image 1 Mini
score 28.0
0
2
GPT Image 1.5
score 27.2
0
3
ImagineArt 1.5 (Preview)
score 24.4
0
4
FLUX.2 [dev]
score 24.2
0
5
GPT Image 2
score 23.8
0
6
Seedream 5.0 Lite
score 22.7
0
7
FLUX.2 [dev] Turbo
score 22.5
0
8
FLUX.2 [klein] 9B
score 22.3
0
9
Grok Imagine Image Pro
score 22.3
0
10
Recraft V4
score 21.8
0
11
FLUX.2 [dev] Flash
score 21.7
0
12
Qwen Image 2512
score 21.0
0
13
Nano Banana Pro
score 21.0
0
14
Seedream 4.5
score 20.6
0
15
Nano Banana
score 20.3
0
16
FLUX.2 [flex]
score 19.9
0
17
FLUX.2 [max]
score 19.6
0
18
Nano Banana 2
score 19.6
0
19
Vidu Q2
score 18.5
0
20
Seedream 4.0
score 18.1
0
21
FLUX.1 Kontext [max]
score 17.6
0
22
Imagen 4.0 Fast Generate 001
score 17.4
0
23
Grok Imagine Image
score 17.1
0
24
FLUX.2 [pro]
score 17.1
0
25
Z-Image Turbo
score 17.0
0
26
Recraft V4.1 Pro
score 16.4
0
27
Wan 2.6
score 15.5
0
28
Imagen 4.0 Ultra Generate 001
score 15.5
0
29
DALL-E 2
score 15.4
0
30
Recraft V4 Pro
score 15.4
0
31
Wan 2.5 (Preview)
score 14.5
0
32
Nano Banana 2 Lite
score 14.4
0
33
HiDream I1 Full
score 14.3
0
34
Wan 2.7 Pro
score 13.4
0
35
Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large
score 13.0
0
36
LongCat-Image
score 12.9
0
37
FLUX.1 Kontext [pro]
score 12.5
0
38
HiDream I1 Fast
score 12.2
0
39
Qwen Image 2.0
score 12.0
0
40
Qwen Image
score 11.4
0
41
FLUX.1 Kontext [dev]
score 10.8
0
42
GPT Image 1
score 8.5
0
43
Recraft V4.1
score 8.1
0
44
FLUX.1 [schnell] FP8
score 7.9
0
45
FLUX.1 [dev]
score 7.9
0
46
FLUX1.1 [pro] Ultra
score 7.0
0
47
Wan 2.7
score 6.5
0
48
FLUX1.1 [pro]
score 6.0
0
49
FLUX.1 [schnell]
score 5.1
0
50
FLUX.1 Krea [dev]
score 0.9
0
51
Stable Diffusion 3.5 Medium
score 0.7
0
52
FLUX.2 [klein] 4B
score 0.3
0
53
Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large Turbo
score 0.0
0
54
OmniGen v2
score 0.0
0
55
DALL-E 3
score -0.2
0
Bria FIBO
awaiting votes
0
Imagen 4.0 Generate 001
awaiting votes
-1
Head to head 4 matchups

Notable battles

The matchups worth a second look from this challenge's blind voting: the closest rivalries, the biggest upsets (a lower seed taking down a favorite), and the clashes at the top of the board. Each bar shows how the community split its votes.

Want to compare other models? Pick any two and see them go head to head.
The archive

Through time

How Candid Street Photography has evolved, release by release.

2022 to 2026· 6 reigns· 57 models
The Reign Chain
6 reigns

How the crown changed hands

Every model that has held #1 on this challenge, in order. Click any era to travel through time.

  1. R01
    Inception
    DALL-E 2
    Apr 2022 May 2025
    reigned 3.1 yrs
  2. R02
    FLUX.1 Kontext [max]
    May 2025 Sep 2025
    reigned 4 mo · overtook DALL-E 2
  3. R03
    Seedream 4.0
    Sep 2025 Sep 2025
    reigned 1 mo · overtook FLUX.1 Kontext [max]
  4. R04
    Vidu Q2
    Sep 2025 Oct 2025
    reigned 1 mo · overtook Seedream 4.0
  5. R05
    Gemini 2.5 Flash Image
    Oct 2025 Oct 2025
    reigned 1 mo · overtook Vidu Q2
  6. R06
    Current
    GPT Image 1 Mini
    Oct 2025 today
    reigned 11 mo · overtook Gemini 2.5 Flash Image

Generation history

57 models · newest first
Show full history 52
  1. Recraft V4.1 3 takes
  2. GPT Image 2 3 takes
  3. Wan 2.7 3 takes
  4. 52 more models Apr 2022 – Apr 2026 Show