The Winners of New Jersey Monthly and Unique Photo’s 2023 Cover Search Contest

See the stunning results of our annual search for local photographers' best images.

Cover of New Jersey Monthly's December 2023 issue

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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