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.
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 April 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.
The photographer of the first-placed image overall, as decided by the panel of judges, will receive 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
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.
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.