The theme for the eighth round of the Camera Jabber Photographer of the Year (CJPOTY) competition was ‘Shadows’ and we were delighted with the range of images that were submitted.
Now, we can reveal that the following images will go onto our shortlist to be judged by our illustrious panel at the end of the year.
One of these ten shortlisted images has also been selected as the round winner with the photographer being awarded a voucher from MPB worth £500 – scroll down to find out who.
CJPOTY August 2022 Shadows shortlisted images
Angela Harrod
This image caught our attention immediately. In a way, the shadow has become the tree and we like how it’s framed perfectly by shadows on either side. Angela captured her image using her Canon EOS 5D Mark III.
Jeremy Prydal
Jeremy captured this fabulously amusing image using an iPhone 12 Max Pro, and it put a smile on our faces as soon as we saw it. We love that we can see the gull’s feet through the canvas while its ‘body’ is made from its shadow.
Sara Jazbar
Sara tells us that she was in Milan for some modern architecture shots, but was drawn to this man’s shadow. The sun was low, making his shadow long. She says, ‘I particularly liked the contrast and the pose of the guy reading from his tablet while having a smoke’. We do too!
Sara shot the image with her Nikon D500 and Tokina 11-20mm f/2.8 lens.
Giustina Wind
Giustina used her Panasonic bridge camera to capture this superb image of nuns in the Vatican Gardens from the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. The fact that the nuns are wearing white makes a monochrome image a great choice, especially when the subject is shadows. The stance of the nearest nun and the movement in the habits gives the image a dynamic element.
Gelena Rozenberg
Shadows are a great subject for black and white photography and Gelena has shown a very delicate touch with this beautiful image of some dunes in Morocco. We love the interlocking curves. Gelena captured her image using her Canon EOS R, a full-frame mirrorless camera.
Philippa Huber
Philippa tells us that she was struck by how beautiful a mundane home accessory can be in the right light, and we are too. We love the subtle tonal transitions, but Philippa’s careful composition is excellent as well. Captured with a Nikon 90D and a Sigma 105mm lens.
Mandy Coyne
Mandy took this bottle outside to enable the sun to create its shadow, revealing some of the texture and imperfections of the glass. It’s a simple but well executed image that works well. The image was captured using a Canon EOS R5.
Liz Hammond
We asked that this round’s images feature shadows either as the main subject or as a key element and this image from Liz Hammond, captured with a Canon EOS 7D and EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM lens, certainly fits the bill! Liz says, ‘it can be interesting to play with every day objects and see what you make of them. This is the shadow of a household grater repeated and rotated in post to form a pleasing pattern.’ It looks like a shadow kaleidoscope and we love it.
Carole Zimmerman
Carole was out photographing surfers with her Sony A6500 and Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS lens but she says, ‘the sun was in a difficult position but I noticed that the surfers were making fabulous shadows when surfing to the left. Also it made the surfer look almost like a silhouette.’ It’s a fabulous shot.
Linda Wride
You can almost feel the heat of the sun when you look at this image. It was captured by Linda Wride using her Nikon D750 while on the white terrace of a villa in Santorini. It’s another shot that proves you need to keep your eyes open at all times for photographic opportunities.
CJPOTY August 2022 winner: Gelena Rozenberg
Congratulations Gelena, a voucher to the value of £500 from MPB is heading your way!
Gelena’s image will join the other nine in our shortlist to be judged for the overall prize at the end of the year.
CJPOTY September 2022: Perfect Pets
The theme for the ninth round of the Camera Jabber Photographer of the Year (CJPOTY) competition is ‘Perfect Pets’. We all love our pets and think they are perfect, and here at Jabber HQ, they are a popular subject for our photography. For the September round of CJPOTY we want to see images of pets, whether they are your pets, a friend’s or a neighbour’s. And don’t worry, we take very liberal view of the word ‘perfect’.
This round of our monthly competition is open for submissions until 23:59 BST (00:59 CET and 15:59 PST) on 30th September 2022.
To submit your entry, visit cjpoty.com. You can submit up to three entries for £2.00 plus payment processing costs (£0.26).
Photographing pets
Whether you are photographing a dog or a hamster, one of the key tips for pet photography is to get down to the animal’s eye level. It makes them the star of the show and helps the viewer connect with the subject.
A clean background is great for traditional portraits, but it’s also nice to get photographs of your pet in context and doing what it loves. So if your dog is a keen ball-chaser, puddle wallower or stick-chewer, try to shoot images of them in action to capture their real character. Showing them in their environment also adds a sense of scale.
Just like a portrait of a human, focus on the animals’ eyes and use an aperture that delivers the depth of field that you want.
Camera Jabber Photographer of the Year prizes
At the end of the month, the Camera Jabber team will pick one winning image and nine runners up from the June entries. The photographer of the winning image will receive a voucher from MPB.com to the value of £500 which can be spent on anything from a huge range of kit from the World’s biggest platform for used photographic gear.
All 10 of the selected images will go into our shortlist for the year.
We’ll do this each month in 2022 so that by the end of the year, there will be 120 shortlisted images. These will then go before our fantastic panel of judges who will decide the 1st, 2nd and 3rd-placed images. You don’t have to enter the competition every month, but you are welcome to do so and the more shortlisted images you have at the end of the year, the greater than chance of winning the top prize.
The photographer of the first-placed image overall, as decided by the panel of judges, will received a voucher to the value of £1000 from MPB.com as well as a trophy and the title ‘Camera Jabber Photographer of the Year 2023‘. The photographers who come second and third will receive vouchers worth £500 and £250 respectively.
The judges are:
Ben Brain – Photographer, journalist & Sigma ambassador
Sophie Collins – Chief Marketing Office at MPB
Donna Crous – Food photographer, author, Nikon Europe ambassador and Rotolight Master of Light
Kate Hopewell-Smith – Wedding, portrait & boudoir photographer, Sony ambassador
Sanjay Jogia – Wedding photographer & Canon ambassador
Pete Reed OBE – Three times Olympic gold medal-winning rower and keen documentary photographer
Dominique Shaw – Photographer and co-founder of York Place Studios and Fujifilm ambassador
Craig Strong – Lensbaby founder
Christina Vaughan – Founder of Cultura Creative, the home of inclusive stock photography
Jeremy Walker – Landscape photographer, author & former Nikon ambassador
About MPB
Founded by Matt Barker in 2011, MPB is the world’s largest platform for used photography and videography kit. MPB has transformed the way people buy, sell and trade equipment, making photography more accessible, affordable and sustainable.
Headquartered in the creative communities of Brighton, Brooklyn and Berlin, the MPB team includes trained camera experts and seasoned photographers and videographers who bring their passion to work every day to deliver outstanding service. Every piece of kit is inspected carefully by product specialists and comes with a six-month warranty to give customers peace of mind that buying used doesn’t mean sacrificing reliability.