The theme for the ninth round of the Camera Jabber Photographer of the Year (CJPOTY) competition was ‘Perfect Pets’ and you treated us to some absolutely delightful images.
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. Two clever photographers have also managed to get two images shortlisted.
CJPOTY September 2022 Perfect Pets shortlisted images
Abi Hayler
Abi calls this image ‘Care free’ and we think it’s the perfect title, the dog looks in its element! Abi says, ‘Olive is a rescue dog, she loves nothing more than running through mud, I’m sure trying to change her colour from white to brown!’ Abi captured this fabulous image using her Sony A7 III.
Abi’s second shortlisted image is of Keira, she tells us, ‘Keira was extremely abused as a young dog and getting her to engage with me was a challenge. This is a photo I’m proud of as it difficult to capture!’ It’s a great photo Abi, we love your processing and how Keira stands out from the background.
Angi Wallace
Angi’s image doesn’t just stand out from the crowd because it’s of one of the more unusual pets, it’s also superbly timed, framed and composed image. Angi captured this image of a friend’s Cuban tree frog with her Sony A7 II and Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS lens. She says that the frog had stopped briefly while climbing and we reckon it was having a good look at its reflection in the lens. Do frogs smile? This one seems to be.
Michelle Jackson
Michelle’s gorgeous portrait of Lottie was shot with a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. Michelle has done a brilliant job with the lighting so that Lottie’s dark head is separated from the black background and her eyes shine. The focusing is also perfect and there’s bags of detail in Lottie’s fur.
Edyta Rice
Edyta says, ‘this is my dog Cuba. Cuba, just like his owner, is a big flower lover. I’ve captured him in the perfect moment, surrounded by vibrant purple heather, he stood still for a couple of seconds sniffing the flower. This dreamy capture gives him nearly angelic look, which is totally opposite to his temperament. He’s still a perfect pet though, even if it only on the picture!’ He looks perfect to us Edyta! Edyta captured the image using her Nikon D810 and 105mm f/2.8 lens.
Jo Rickatson
Meet Willow. Willow is giving Jo exactly the same look that my dog gives me when I’m holding a treat to get his attention. We love the intensity of the eye contact in this lovely portrait.
Beth Nicholls
We couldn’t resist this portrait of Bella licking her chops while keeping an eye on Beth. We’re pretty certain that there was treat heading Bella’s way. Beth captured this image using her Canon EOS 5D Mark III.
Olivia Moore
Olivia calls this image, ‘Among the flowers’ and we love the alternative take on a portrait shot. So often dogs don’t do what you want them to, but Olivia has gone with the flow, put the focus on the dog’s eye and captured a memorable image with her Nikon D750.
It looks like the dog in Olivia’s second shortlisted image behaved itself for this shoot. The dog is nicely positioned on a tree stump and framed by the trees to either side, with a nicely out of focus background. Great work Olivia!
John Thorndike
John used his Canon EOS 7D Mark II and EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens to capture this wonderful image of a soggy dog. It looks great in black and white and John has done well to capture a moment when the dog is still, perhaps looking towards its owner waiting for a stick to be thrown. It’s a cracking shot, John.
CJPOTY September 2022 winner: Olivia Moore
Congratulations Olivia, a voucher to the value of £500 from MPB is heading your way!
Olivia’s image will join the other nine in our shortlist to be judged for the overall prize at the end of the year.
CJPOTY October 2022: Silhouettes
The theme for the tenth round of the Camera Jabber Photographer of the Year (CJPOTY) competition is ‘Silhouettes’. These images can be shot at any time of the year but they can be particularly effective during autumn when the sunsets can be very dramatic – but if you don’t fancy going outside, it’s possible to shoot creative silhouettes indoors as well.
This round of our monthly competition is open for submissions until 23:59 GMT (00:59 CET and 15:59 PST) on 31st October 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 silhouettes
A key aspect of a silhouette image is that the subject has a distinctive outline that stands out clearly from the background. The sky makes a great choice of background and it can be a uniform white, cloudy or a colourful sunset, but you can also shoot silhouettes indoors.
Sunrise and sunset lend themselves particularly well to silhouette images because underexposing to make the subject black intensifies the colour in the sky. However, it’s important to find a striking subject and ensure that it is focus.
If you’re shooting a silhouette image indoors, you’re likely to find that you need to light the background of your image so that your subject stands out. You could even make the light source itself the background.
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.