Arrival, 2026, shot on iPhone 16 Pro Max. Photograph: Derek Zhao View image in fullscreen Arrival, 2026, shot on iPhone 16 Pro Max. Photograph: Derek Zhao Smart shot Photography ‘I was mesmerised by how the fog turned the tower into a monolith’: Derek Zhao’s best phone picture Zhao was out jogging around Treasure Island, near San Francisco, when he spotted a lonely tower stabbing through the clouds
Prefer the Guardian on Google E very morning, Derek Zhao jogs the perimeter of Treasure Island, his home, situated an eight-minute ferry ride from San Francisco. “It’s an endless source of frustration for me that I can’t bring my cameras with me,” he says. “When the island gifts me its beautiful scenes, I should be grateful that phones have pretty decent cameras, too.”
Read more Zhao works as a machine-learning engineer at Disney California. He relocated from Texas last year to take up the role, finding the 400-acre human-made island to be the perfect location, “close enough to the office and all the culture the city has to offer, but far enough that I’m waking up to the sound of seagulls instead of car horns”.
He took this image earlier this year, stopping mid-jog to capture the top of San Francisco’s Salesforce Tower. “I was mesmerised by how the fog, caused by what’s known as a marine layer, completely covered the rest of the skyline, leaving only the tower looking like a monolith,” he says. “It’s ironic that something that obscures, like fog, can make a scene more clear.”
It’s only recently that Zhao has come to realise that his favourite photos don’t come from travels with his professional cameras, but “improbable scenes near home that somehow only reveal themselves when I’m not expecting them. It brings me considerable peace that despite living in such close proximity to the centre of things I feel ambivalent about – tech, AI, urban density, hustle culture – the universe can still grant such awe-inspiring moments of quiet.