Buy our December 2023 issue here. Cover photo: Rob Melone
There’s a story—and a potential photo opportunity—in practically every corner of New Jersey, from the natural wonders of our forests to the architecture of our cities to the characters who make our state so unique. This contest celebrates all of it. Since 2018, New Jersey Monthly and Unique Photo have invited readers to submit their favorite images to our annual Cover Search, which is open to professional, amateur and student photographers.
The challenge: Take a photo in New Jersey that is striking enough to command the cover of our December issue. With Unique, the editorial team at NJM reviewed this year’s 1,310 submissions for originality, technical excellence, composition, artistic merit and relevance to life in New Jersey. We narrowed down the pool to 150 finalists for our expert judging panel* to review, using the same criteria.
Through this process, we named a grand-prize winner (whose photo you see on the cover), a runner-up and a student winner, and bestowed 10 awards of excellence and 25 honorable mentions. For the first time, we invited readers to vote online for their favorite image—the Jersey Choice winner. In addition to having their photos in NJM, the honorees receive photo equipment and gift cards from Unique Photo—so they can keep taking even more beautiful photos.
[RELATED: See All Previous Cover Contest Winners Here]
COVER WINNER:
BARNEGAT LIGHT
Rob Melone
📍: Barnegat Lighthouse
📸: Nikon D500 with telephoto lens
Here in New Jersey, we see a lot of lighthouses and a lot of beautiful birds. But this photo of a great egret standing so majestically in front of Barnegat Lighthouse is one of a kind.
“It was one of those spontaneous things,” says Rob Melone, a retiree who has been taking wildlife photos for 15 years. “I just happened to have my camera with me.” Melone, who lives in Hamilton and spends a lot of time at the Shore, first saw the egret on the boardwalk, and then, when it stopped so perfectly in front of the lighthouse, he began to snap.
RUNNER-UP:
CELESTIAL ENERGY
Patricia Worley
📍: South Jersey
📸: Canon EOS R5 with 16-35mm lens
Patricia Worley (@worley_pat) has a special relationship with the Milky Way, which can be seen in the center of this photograph, perpendicular to the ground. “For me, the excitement is sharing this celestial phenomenon that we have going on around us,” says the semiprofessional photographer from Medford Lakes, noting that many people, especially in our area, never get to see the Milky Way with the naked eye.
Worley tracks the best times and locations to see the Milky Way and has returned to this South Jersey spot many times.
JERSEY CHOICE READERS’ PICK:
KEEPER OF THE BOGS
Bill LeConey
📍: Shamong
📸: Nikon D750
Bill LeConey (@b_le_coney) was running an errand one morning last October when he drove by a cranberry harvest in a Pine Barrens bog. LeConey, who works for the federal government and is also a freelance photographer, usually keeps his camera in his truck, but didn’t have it with him that morning. The photographic opportunity in front of him, though, was too good too pass up, so he ran home, grabbed his camera and captured this image.
Afterward, through social media, LeConey managed to find the subject of this photo, who has worked in the bogs for decades. LeConey even gave him two framed prints. They’re still in touch. “This whole area is built around these bogs, so for me to capture a moment with family members who have been working these bogs for 60 years—it summed it all up for me and put it into perspective,” says LeConey.
STUDENT WINNER:
PINING AWAY
Nathaniel Burke
📍: Stokes State Forest
📸: Canon EOS Rebel T3
This photo not only “looks cool,” as 17-year-old Nathaniel Burke (@burkephotos7) puts it, but it has deeper meaning for the Sparta High School senior. He snapped it during a hike in Stokes State Forest with his mother and sister, a tradition his family started during the pandemic. “We got really close during Covid,” says Burke.
To capture this shot, taken from a “bug’s point of view,” Burke lay on the ground and pointed up. “I got dirt all over my nice new white sweatshirt,” Burke says with a laugh. But this winning image was worth it for the student, who is part of the yearbook staff and also works as a photographer for his school, taking pictures of athletic games, concerts and other events. “My favorite part of photography is capturing the small moments,” he says.
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE:
FRONT STREET ON JULY 4TH
Jaime Glover
📍: Plainfield
📸: Sony A7 III
On a hot July 4th, 2023, Jaime Glover (@shangosoul) came across a friendly group enjoying the holiday in downtown Plainfield. It was an everyday moment, yet a powerful one. “To me, it just crystallized the community here in Plainfield,” says Glover of this image. “We’re a diverse community, black and brown people.” Glover, who works as the station operations manager for the city of Plainfield’s media department, got into photography two years ago and just “fell in love with it.”
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE:
BERGEN COUNTY HORSE RESCUE
Ida Mae Astute
📍: Mahwah
📸: Nikon D750
Ida Mae Astute is a passionate volunteer at the Bergen County Horse Rescue, a sanctuary for abused and neglected horses, which is where she photographed these sweet pals, Murphy (left) and Big Ben. “They were such good friends they would squeeze themselves into one little stall,” says Astute, of Washington Township. She adds, “Horses have emotions, they have feelings, they create bonds with each other.” Astute worked as a picture editor and, occasionally, a photographer for ABC Television for 37-plus years.
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE:
BLACK SKIMMERS
Susan Allen
📍: Stone Harbor
📸: Canon R5 with 100-400 mm lens
Susan Allen (@what.sue.seas), of Port Republic, likes to joke, “Birds taught me photography, and now photography is teaching me about birds”—including black skimmers, pictured here. “The more I photograph birds, the more I want to learn about them. Now I go for a conservation focus with my photos, and [a desire to] educate.” To capture this image in Stone Harbor, Allen lay flat in the sand. She notes how the sky and sand meet right where the bird is flying toward her.
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE:
BUTTERFLY IN MOTION
Jack Kosowsky
📍: Allaire State Park
📸: Canon EOS R7 with 100-500mm lens
Jack Kosowsky (@jaxpropix) was at Allaire State Park photographing hummingbirds when a butterfly caught his eye. But he wasn’t interested in capturing the expected. “You’ve seen a million pictures of a butterfly in flight or sitting on a flower,” says the Yardville resident, who works at a casino and also takes wildlife and nature photos. To achieve the blur in this photo, Kosowsky used long-exposure photography and adjusted the shutter speed until he landed this shot. He didn’t have a tripod, but rested his elbows on a fence so the rest of the picture stayed crisp. “It was one of those photos that when I looked at it, I gasped, Oh my God, I’ve got it.”
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE:
MIDNIGHT IN MADISON
Ned Luke
📍: Memorial Park, Madison
📸: Canon EOS R5
One night, on his way home from work last winter, Ned Luke (@lednuke) drove by this quietly beautiful scene in Madison, just a mile from his home. “In New Jersey, we all have a little bit of a chip on our shoulder that the rest of the states look at us as the armpit of America,” says Luke, who works in the sports industry and has been taking photos since middle school, “but there is so much beauty and opportunity in our own backyards.”
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE:
BRIGANTINE JETTY
Connie Pyatt
📍: Brigantine
📸: Canon EOS R5 with 400mm lens
Three kids having fun without screens? Now that was a moment Connie Pyatt (@conniepyattphotography) just had to capture on film. “It was the day of the air show,” says the Brigantine resident. “I had my big lens out and I was taking pictures of planes, and I saw these kids walking and thought, Wow, I’m so glad to see kids doing something other than sitting on the phone.” Pyatt, a retired accountant, has been a landscape and seascape photographer since 2013.
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE:
MONKSVILLE RESERVOIR
Miroslav Vrzala
📍: Ringwood
📸: Fujifilm GFX 50S with 100-200mm lens, 1.4 extender
“I say the photograph has to talk to me or the location has to speak to me, and then I know it’s the right image for me,” says Miroslav Vrzala (@miroslav_vrzala_photography), of Ramsey, “and with the mist and the birdhouses and the old trees…that made me say, This is it.” Vrzala, who runs a painting business and takes photos as a hobby, snapped this dream-like photo at 7:42 am on a cold fall morning at Monksville Reservoir. He applied a slight blue filter to add a bit more color.
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE:
PICKELL PARK
Bruce Michael
📍: Whitehouse Station
📸: Olympus OM-D E-M1X
Bruce Michael, a retired biologist, appreciates the beauty of nature. “I am amazed at the ability of animals—how they survive and multiply and change with the environment,” says Michael, of Whitehouse Station. He took this time-lapse image of fireflies in Pickell Park, made extra special by the sunset in the background. Michael is a member of the Camera Naturalist Photo Club and loves snapping photos while hiking and kayaking the beautiful trails and waterways of our state.
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE:
SAND DRIFTS OF ISLAND BEACH
Chris Giuliano
📍: Island Beach State Park
📸: Nikon D3500
Chris Giuliano (@cwgiuliano), a graphic designer who took up photography during the pandemic while living at the Shore, loves Island Beach State Park’s “miles and miles of really unpopulated land” and “completely isolated feel”—his ideal conditions for photography. Giuliano snapped this image on a cold and windy November morning, with the sand pelting his skin. But, as Giuliano says, the way the sun was coming up and the wind was blowing made for “perfect conditions for photography.”
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE:
RISE UP
Joan Rekemeier
📍: Scotch Plains
📸: Nikon Z 9
Joan Rekemeier (@joanmariephotography) photographs a lot of newborns, but this particular photo shoot was really special for everyone involved. The 3-month-old pictured here was born early, then spent more than a month in the hospital. “[During the shoot] the father was like, ‘I want to do a shot like the Lion King, where I’m holding her up in the air,’” says Rekemeir, who has a studio in Scotch Plains and lives in Fanwood. “I’m like, ‘Um, yes, we are absolutely doing that!’ I thought it was so powerful in so many ways.”
HONORABLE MENTION:
MY BACKYARD
David Calico
📍: Metuchen
HONORABLE MENTION:
BLUE HERON SHAKING ITS FEATHERS
Lynn Heyns
📍: Princeton
HONORABLE MENTION:
SUMMER HARVEST
Grae Shears
📍: Hackettstown
HONORABLE MENTION:
POINT PLEASANT BEACH
Tom Lynch
📍: Point Pleasant Beach
HONORABLE MENTION:
BEACH
Mary Desoucey
📍: Jersey Shore
HONORABLE MENTION:
TREE SWALLOW AT MERRILL CREEK RESERVOIR
Kent Stuart
📍: Warren County
HONORABLE MENTION:
GREATER PATERSON FALLS NATIONAL PARK
Armando Arturo
📍: Paterson
HONORABLE MENTION:
FRISBEE FETCH
Colette Cannataro
📍: Fairfield
HONORABLE MENTION:
ASBURY ACTION
Jessica Margo
📍: Asbury Park
HONORABLE MENTION:
BIKE ON THE PIER
Mia Mutascio
📍: Ocean Grove
HONORABLE MENTION:
NEW JERSEY REST STOP
Patricia Migliore
📍: Fortescue
HONORABLE MENTION:
JUST FLOATING ALONG
Emilee Carton
📍: Middletown
HONORABLE MENTION:
DELAWARE WATER GAP NEW JERSEY
Bruce Michael
📍: Millbrook Village
HONORABLE MENTION:
VIKING VILLAGE
Kathy Kloos
📍: Barnegat
HONORABLE MENTION:
SOUTH MOUNTAIN RESERVATION
Eric Lax
📍: Millburn
HONORABLE MENTION:
STROLLING THE BOARDWALK
Tom Lapinski
📍: Seaside Heights
HONORABLE MENTION:
FOOTS POND BLUE HERON
Jen Henderson
📍: Morristown
HONORABLE MENTION:
BALLYOWEN GOLF CLUB
Jia Yao
📍: Hamburg
HONORABLE MENTION:
SUMMER NIGHTS SPIN ON
Andrew Cicala
📍: Scotch Plains
HONORABLE MENTION:
LAKE ASSUNPINK SUNSET
Robert Fuller
📍: Upper Freehold
HONORABLE MENTION:
EASTPOINT LIGHTHOUSE
Michael Sutton
📍: Heislerville
HONORABLE MENTION:
ALL ABOUT SOUL
Wayne Londregan
📍: Ocean Grove
HONORABLE MENTION:
LONG BRANCH BEACH, NJ
Andrew Wolff
📍: Long Branch
HONORABLE MENTION:
BOBBY AND THE WOOF BROS.
Jessica Margo
📍: Asbury Park
HONORABLE MENTION:
STARRY NIGHT OVER THE SUNFLOWER FIELD
Derek Boen
📍: Sandyston
*2023 COVER SEARCH JUDGING PANEL
Ann Coen: Ann is a New Jersey photographer who started 20 years ago as a staff photographer for the Asbury Park Press. She now heads Ann Coen Studio and, with her team, specializes in weddings, family portraits and fine-art photography. She lives in Barnegat Light with her 11-year-old son.
James J. Connolly: James is a freelance photographer in the New York metro area for corporate, editorial and commercial clients. He worked for 33 years as a staff photojournalist, photo editor and multimedia editor at the Asbury Park Press and Gannett NJ. He lives in Ocean Township with his wife and two Shetland sheepdogs.
Laura Moss: With more than two decades of industry experience, Laura is a seasoned freelance commercial photographer living in Jersey City and working across the country, specializing in capturing the essence of interiors and lifestyle. Clients include iRobot, Nest Studios, Pottery Barn and Walmart.
Joe Polillio: Joe has been a commercial photographer for more than 30 years in the New York City area, shooting lifestyle, people and architecture for editorial and advertising clients such as AT&T, Macy’s and Redbook. Joe started flight training for drones in 2015 and is the owner of AEROJO Drone Productions.
Jennifer Pottheiser: A longtime New Jersey resident, Jennifer is a commercial photographer who shoots regularly for New Jersey Monthly, JPMorgan Chase, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and other nonprofits. She is a photography lecturer and instructor and a founding partner at Drawbridge Digital.
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