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The theme for the sixth round of the Camera Jabber Photographer of the Year (CJPOTY) competition was ‘Wildlife’. Once again, the range and quality of the images was very impressive. It made selecting our top ten photographs very hard, and we could easily have included many more! However, the deliberation is over and we are delighted to announce that the following images will be added to our shortlist to be judged by our illustrious panel of judges 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 June 2023 ‘Wildlife’ shortlisted images
Sara Jazbar
Sara tells us that every May bee-eaters come to nest in a reservoir at about a 1 hour drive from her home. She says, ‘it’s a true spectacle to see hundreds of these colourful birds together. Hunting, bickering, and mating, they are colourful not only in aspect but in personality too. When I have occasion to go, I stay there for hours observing them, sometimes even forgetting to take pictures. They are truly amazing creatures!’ Thankfully, Sara did remember to use her Nikon D500 and Sigma 150-600mm to capture some images on this occasion!
Stephanie Chadwick
This puffin had to face high winds, heavy rain and the constant attack of black-backed gulls to deliver a beak full of sand eels to its offspring. Stephanie had to endure much of that too to capture this wonderful image with her Sony RX10 IV. Like Stephanie, we love the look of quiet fortitude on the bird’s face as it succeeds in its task. The water droplets on its feathers also make the conditions apparent.
Molly Hollman
Molly used her Sigma 105mm macro lens on her Sony A7 III to photograph this red soldier beetle at the top of a fern, and we think she’s done a brilliant job. The focus is exactly where it needs to be, and there’s just enough field depth so that the beetle’s top half is sharp, but the background is an attractive blur of green.
Helen Trust
Helen captured this red kite circling above her old apartment with her Canon EOS 5D Mark III and Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary. She says, ‘They are so beautiful and majestic, it’s scary to think that they were nearly extinct, yet I was able to observe them daily’.
We love the detail in Helen’s image and the bird’s dynamic diagonal across the square frame.
Jane Gross
While the female leopard’s body in Jane’s image looks fairly relaxed, its eyes have an intensity. Jane tells us that it was looking for her nearby cub and had a kill up in a tree. Jane captured this superb image using her Nikon D750 and Nikon 80-400mm f4.5-5.6 lens.
Ellen Bogenschutz
We saw many images of birds and animals catching and eating fish, so it was nice to see Ellen’s image of a salmon leaping upriver. Ellen must’ve had lots of patience to capture this image, and her timing and composition are perfect. We love how the fish matches the colour of the rocks around it.
Carmen Drake
Carmen says, ‘This is one of the nicest wildlife encounters I’ve experienced – a green woodpecker and the chick in the nest, in Bushy Park, London. Bushy Park is an amazing place for wildlife, and I’m lucky to be close to it and visit often.’
It’s a fabulous image with pleasant earthy tones, attractive bokeh in the background and superb eye contact between the two subjects. The young bird’s message is clear to all!
Carmen captured this wonderful image with the Canon EOS R6 and Canon RF 100‑500mm f/4.5‑7.1L IS USM lens.
Barbara Taskó
This is an image that many photographers aspire to capture, and Barbara has delivered it superbly. The kingfisher’s wings are at the bottom of their down stroke, so the colourful feathers are on display. Droplets are also still falling from the bird, and the splash around its exit point from the water is clear. Well done, Barabara.
Elizabeth Hammond
Elizabeth says, ‘This little wren was gathering moss to line its nest in a fallen tree in Bushy Park. Wren’s have been a bit of a nemesis for me. Despite one hanging out in my garden all last year, I didn’t manage a decent shot. It just kept flitting off as I got my sights on it. So it really was an absolute treat to spend time with this cute bird and finally get a decent shot.’
Wrens are tiny, and they move quickly, but Elizabeth’s determination paid off with this wonderful image captured using her Canon EOS R7 and Canon EF 100-400mm 4.5-5.6 L IS lens.
Alison Tetley
As Alison explains, the expression on the leopard’s face tells a tale, ‘this leopard had crept closer and closer to the grazing zebra herd, but at the last minute, he was spotted. He turned dejectedly towards us and walked slowly away.’ Alison’s composition is excellent. We particularly like that how the zebra are out of focus, but there’s enough detail to see that they are watching the big cat’s retreat.
Alison captured this image using her Fujifilm X-T3 and Fujifilm Fujinon XF 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 R LM WR OIS lens.
CJPOTY June 2023 winner: Carmen Drake
Congratulations, Carmen, a voucher worth £500 from MPB is heading your way!
Carmen’s image joins the other 9 images selected this month and goes onto our shortlist for our panel of VIP judges at the end of the year for the overall prize.
CJPOTY July: Summer
The theme for the seventh round of the 2023/24 Camera Jabber Photographer of the Year (CJPOTY) competition is ‘Summer’. Although it’s lovely to get out in the sunshine, the harsh light can make photography tricky. Nevertheless, summer holidays, the rural idle and blue skies hold plenty of appeal for photographers. For this round, we’d like to see images of whatever summer means to you, they can be captured anywhere and at any time.
This round of our monthly competition is open for submissions until 23:59 BST (00:59 CET and 15:59 PST) on 31st July 2023.
To submit your entry, follow the link to cjpoty or click on the CJPOTY button at the top of any of our website pages. You can submit up to three entries for £2.00 plus payment processing costs (£0.26). Images should be Jpegs at least 1920 pixels along their longest side but no larger than 2MB.
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 July 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 2023 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.
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.
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