There is an emotional response from photo effects. Things like bokeh, contrast, lighting, over/under exposure, over/under saturated, etc all produce an emotional response from people. The phone automatically picks out elements of the composition using machine learning (aka AI) to detect how many people are in the photo, skin tones, etc. Using this information, the photo is adjusted to maximize the emotional impact.
My point is that while some photos might actually look like an accidental renaissance, but a lot of engineering has gone into emotionally manipulating photos from your phone. Just because you did not tell the phone to make these adjustments does not mean the adjustments are not being made.
In terms of a contest, I think winning should be the result of active decision making, not your phone making decisions for you.