The funniest photography competition in the world announced their winners and the grand prize winner was a kangaroo playing air guitar.

Up against 5,300 entries from 85 countries, Jason Moore from Australia with his ‘Air Guitar Roo’ prevailed in the closest voting ever.

Taken in the outer suburbs of Perth, Jason visited a yellow field of wildflowers where a “mob” of adult kangaroos and joeys were playing and feeding—and apparently listening to music.

“When I saw this Roo striking the air guitar pose, it immediately brought a smile to my face, and I knew that I had captured something really special. “

As the Comedy Wildlife Photographer of the Year champion, Jason won a safari in the Masai Mara, Kenya, and other prizes.

The competition was founded in 2015 by Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam, both professional photographers and conservationists to create a fun and free-to-enter photography competition unlike any other.

6 Category Winners included the Junior Category, won by 16-year-old Jacek Stankiewicz with his image of two greenfinches in Poland called ‘Dispute’, which also took home this year’s People’s Choice Award.

“I caught this scene in the Bialowieza Forest while watching birds that looked like they were having argument,” said the young Polish man. “My friends interpret this scene, (saying) ‘One kid is reporting to the parent that its brother did something wrong.”

There were also 10 Highly Commended Winners, including the entry above from France called Snowball. “Taken in Spitzberg during a very cold winter, the white grouse is coming to me and looked like a snowball with eyes,” recalled Jacques Poulard.

‘The Rainforest Dandy’ was taken in a monkey forest in Ubud, Bali by Delphine Casimir.

“This place is a crazy place where monkeys are king! sometimes they give a show, sometimes, they climb on you to look for fleas or steal the piece of biscuit you are trying to eat,” she said. “Their kingdom has three hindu temples. Maybe our dandy is the reicarnation of a divinity?”

‘The Happy Turtle Dragonfly’ was shot in the Jezreel Valley in Israel by Tzahi Finkelstein who mused, “The swamp turtle is surprised and smiles at the dragonfly resting on its nose.”

Taken at Westerfolds Park—a surprisingly wild pocket of land in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia—a mob of kangaroo was enjoying some morning sunshine when this joey decided to get silly and try his hand at boxing.

And finally, this gannet family was a touching winner from the UK. Each year between March and October, around half a million seabirds use the Bempton chalk cliffs towering above the North Sea to nest and raise a family.

Gannets mate for life and they return to the same nest year after year to raise their young. Zoe Ashdown described how she got the winning shot:

COMEDY WINNERS FROM 2022: The Funniest Wildlife Photos of 2022 Win Big Laughs in Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

“Lying safely at the top of the cliff face I was able to observe the affection shown between the gannets each time one returned to the nest.

“They have a greeting ritual: they rub beaks and entwine their necks; it’s how they strengthen their bond. But it’s also a brilliant opportunity to catch them in various poses.

CHECK OUT THE 2021 WINNERS: From Cheeky Bears to Goofy Gophers, See the Fun Finalists of the Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards

“As soon as I saw (this capture) I laughed out loud! They look like proud parents, posing with their baby – definitely one for the family album!”

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What transforms an average photographer into one able to land high-paying campaigns? Surprisingly, it has little to do with fancy gear or technical skills. In this great video essay, an experienced pro photographer and educator argues that developing a distinct creative voice and specialty is the key ingredient propelling artistic greats to the top tiers of success.

Coming to you from Scott Choucino of Tin House Studio, the video makes the case that standout talents like Annie Liebovitz share an identifiable style, making their work instantly recognizable. This stems from their rare ability to translate individual life perspectives into images showcasing a bold and consistent point of view.

Rather than prioritizing tricks for perfectly diffused lighting or trendy post-processing, Choucino urges his audience to embark on an introspective journey figuring out their core experiences, interests, and personality. What childhood memories or cultural influences make you view the world differently than mainstream shooters chasing conformity on Instagram? Once self-knowledge is obtained, the next milestone is determining your ideal subject matter to photograph that aligns with your story.

By niching down into specialized domains matching your background, you can develop mastery and thought leadership sought by commercial clients. Meanwhile, injecting visual flares echoing formative life events helps distinguish the mood and style of imagery. For example, reflections on growing up working-class surrounded by junk food inspired Choucino to integrate these themes into his vibrant, texture-rich food photography, fueling advertising assignments from top brands. Embracing your authentic self is the smartest path to success in an increasingly crowded industry. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Choucino.

(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Stills)

Before photojournalist Lee Miller even held a camera in her hands, she was being picked up by the waist by an American media titan. In a chance meeting, she’d stepped out in front of a car on a busy Manhattan street, but by sheer luck, Condé Nast grabbed her before she could be run over. That inadvertently launched her modelling career, and she was soon gracing the cover of Vogue. The editor-in-chief thought she was the perfect reflection of a “modern girl”, a description she consistently over-delivered on as she broke out of modelling and into the art world.

While Miller was embraced by New York’s photographers, she was dropped as quickly as she was discovered. Kotex had used a picture of her, without her permission, to advertise their menstrual pads. The fashion world had dubbed her the perfect modern woman but effectively ended her career over the incident. She dabbled in fashion for a while longer, mainly drawing outfits, but soon found she was drawn to photography.

Part of Miller’s feminist appeal was her boldness, and in the face of industry sexism that drove her out of modelling, she simply set out to Paris and said: “I would rather take a picture than be one.” In France, she quickly fell in with the Surrealist crowd, apprenticing under Man Ray. He famously didn’t take on students, but Miller rocked up anyway, instructing him she was his new student, and that was it. Ray became a collaborator, lover, and muse all in one – working together so often that her photographs are often wrongly credited to him.

Alongside Ray, Miller stumbled on solarisation – a photographic technique that inverts light. It was a total accident. A mouse had run over her foot, and she’d rushed to switch a light on as a photo developed. It became a visual stamp of the couple, seen in Miller’s portraits of Dorothy Hill and Meret Oppenheim. Despite making massive waves in French Surrealist circles, befriending Pablo Picasso and Paul Éluard, she abandoned it all in 1942.

In another fearless career pivot, she became a wartime correspondent for Condé Nast publications. Armed with the support of Vogue’s Audrey Withers, Miller approached the military policies that discriminated against women with total disregard. Her entire focus was documenting the atrocities of war, which she did with an unflinching eye. Miller recorded the first use of napalm at St. Malo, the corpses of Nazi officers, and children living in poverty.

Confronted with these various horrors, she drew on her Surrealist background to poignantly document the deepest recesses of human brutality. In one of the most iconic and literally surreal images to come out of this period, fellow photographer David E. Scherman took a picture of her in Adolf Hitler’s bathtub – on the day he committed suicide.

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How to Buy

There are myriad spots to source fine art photography and prices are hugely varied and cater to most budgets. However, making choices can be overwhelming for novice collectors.

Helen Armon-Jones, of the Art Buyer, a Surrey, U.K.-based gallery and art consultancy, said, to begin with, “consider whether you’re looking for contemporary, living photographer’s work, or whether you’re keen to invest in a notable photographer’s work on the secondary market, for example, at auction or through an art dealer.”

The price range can vary enormously, depending on the notoriety of the photographic artist and, for example, the edition size, Armon-Jones said. Most photographers will create a limited edition of a single print so that each print retains its value. Typically, the lower the number in an edition, the higher the cost.

For contemporary artists, Armon-Jones recommended exploring fairs like the London Art Fair, which runs in January, for its “wonderful selection” of photography from multiple galleries and dealers; Proud Galleries in London’s Charing Cross, a go-to spot for photography fans with its rich selection of 20th-century pop culture-centered works, including portraits of famous bands and musicians; and the Michael Hoppen Gallery, which specializes in photography and showcases new and interesting artists alongside masters from the 19th, 20th and 21st century. She also recommended Black Box Projects, which specializes in contemporary photography and contemporary art using photographic materials.

Claire McCaslin-Brown, director of the London-based McCaslin-Brown art advisory, recommended Photo London, an annual fair held in May at London’s Somerset House, which brings together 125 exhibitors from 56 countries; Paris Photo, an annual fair held in Paris; and Photofairs, a new contemporary art fair in New York dedicated to photo-based artworks.

ArtStar, a New York-based online platform, offers limited-edition fine art prints, curated around a particular style: bold colors, ice cream tones, and a vintage aesthetic. Wall vs Me is an online platform with exciting photography that can be printed onto both canvas and Fuji Crystal Archive paper and includes framing options. Lumas offers hand-signed limited editions, including high-priced unique pieces at galleries and less valuable high-circulation prints from museum stores in different size options. Partnership Editions is an online art selling platform which has a small range of limited-edition photographic prints that mainly focus on nature and travel themes.

“I try to get out of my comfort zone all the time, and I get inspiration from pretty much everything – from a book I read, from a walk, from a random conversation, a mural, or maybe even more from what feelings something triggered in me and how I can tell others about it through my point of view. I am mostly inspired by places,” says photographer Lukasz Spychala to the Phoblographer in an interview. We’ve featured Lukasz before in an interview, but we’re so in love with his work and how he’s evolved as a photographer that we needed to give him the spotlight again. And when he walks around, he pays a lot of attention to his surroundings, the memories they evoke, the emotions in him, etc. This is the type of inner connectivity that so many photographers yearn for when they’re in a creative slump.

All images by Lukasz Spychala. Used with permission. Visit his website and Instagram page to see more of his work. Want to have your work featured? Click here!

“My photography is a sincere journey into myself, constant research and experimentation.”

Lukasz Spychala

Lukasz, in many ways, sounds like what many photographers want to be. He strives to make new things. “Maybe it’s unrealistic these days, but I try to create something new so that I can look at myself in the mirror and call myself a true creator, not a reproducer,” he says, in words that sound all too familiar to all of us. “On the other hand, I try not to be inspired and look at the photos of others around me who are taking pictures. I believe that they can very quickly get stuck in our subconscious and make us try to reproduce them, even involuntarily.” So what does he do? He looks at the photography books of various historical photographers instead. Additionally, he takes in paintings and the mise en scene within them all.

Beyond that, he’s inspired by the models that he photographs. He feeds off of the person, their energy, how they’re affected by the location, the idea, etc.

He’s constantly trying to raise the bar for himself, too. He references his “Multiverse” series as a reference to his practices here. “This series takes us on a journey through time and space, revealing the remarkable intergenerational differences that have arisen as a result of rapid technological development,” he tells us, in a very beautiful and thought-provoking way. “For this shoot, I set the scene and provided each character with his or her separate zone in which they function on a daily basis. Each actor symbolizes a different generation of people.” He continued to explain the series to us.

The woman, with curly hair, symbolizes the oldest generation that grew up without the virtual world. There is also an athlete in the photos, symbolizing the generation that has experienced both the analog and digital worlds. In addition to this figure, we also find a red-haired girl symbolizing the youngest generation that was born in the era of the digital revolution. Also appearing in the frames is a mysterious silver figure symbolizing the technology that more or less runs through each generation.

Although we all currently live at the same time, it feels as if we are functioning in completely different dimensions. The “Multiverse” series, therefore, encourages us to reflect on the impact of technology on our lives and encourages us to seek a point of balance between the real and virtual worlds.

Lukasz Spychala

There’s often a lot of work involved for Lukasz and his images. It involved stylists, lighting, set designers, etc. And he shoots analog, so it’s not like this is all done in Photoshop. He tells us that much of this can be very exhausting because of the setup, cleaning, modifications of set design, environmental conditions, etc. “When I press the shutter button, it brings me joy beyond description,” he says. “In turn, watching the developing negative gives me inner peace and a sense that I am trying to grow in my greatest passion.”

With all this said, Lukasz is a true photographer in the sense of the word. And to that end, he finds AI imagery to be just another tool. In his eyes, it’s a big paradigm shift similar to the switch from analog to digital. However, he doesn’t consider AI imagery to be real photography, and instead just a separate category of the visual arts.

So what separates him? “When photographing, I have a certain vision,” Lukasz shares. “I shape my entire photo plan tangibly with my hands or with a message to the model. For me, creating photos with AI is similar, which starts at the level of someone else’s idea.” He explains that there needs to be a creative vision first — and the the actualization of the final product is just achieved in different ways. And overall, he’s not drawn to working with AI.

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Emergence Magazine has announced Shifting Landscapes – an immersive art exhibition documenting aspects of the climate crisis from around the world, taking place during COP28.

Shifting Landscapes will feature a selection of stunning photographic works by artists and photographers, each sharing their unique experiences documenting the effects of the climate crisis. 

The exhibition will open during the United Nations Climate Change Conference, running from December 01-10. Curated by Emmy and Peabody Award-nominated filmmaker and composer, and Emergence Magazine founder, Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, Shifting Landscapes will be held at Oxo Tower Wharf, London.

The exhibition will bring to life Emergence Magazine‘s editorial exploration of the theme of Shifting Landscapes, stating, “The exhibition contemplates our changing Earth during the current moment of loss, possibility, and transformation”. 

The exhibition features work from several professional artists and photographers, including Kiliii Yüyan and their work Beyond the Horizon, which documents the rapidly changing landscape of the Arctic. A selection of stunning wildlife and landscapes combine to tell a strong narrative while providing beautiful visuals.

Other photographers include Gheorghe Popa and his work Poisoned Beauty, a devastating insight into the impact of a Romanian Copper mine on the surrounding ecosystem.

Magnum Photographer Zied Ben Romdhane’s Desert, Fire, Flood, documents the impact of rising temperatures in Tunisia, and Mona Simon’s photography accompanies The Lost World – a film by Sundance award-winning director Kalyanee Mam – focusing on mango tree deforestation in Cambodia. 

Shifting Landscapes is jam-packed with beautiful yet haunting imagery that raises awareness of the crisis that is affecting communities all over the world. As well as being an exhibition of great photography, it includes several other mediums, making it a ‘multi-sensory’ experience.

VR experiences, immersive installations, artist films, and ambisonic sound installations all contribute to sharing the message. Emergence Magazine invites viewers “to see, touch, hear, and breathe – to feel into and participate in – the spaces of connection and kinship that are held here.”

A programme of free weekend talks and events will accompany the exhibition, including conversations with the artists and Emergence Magazine contributors, and special film screenings. A standout guest speaker for me is Booker Prize-winning novelist Ben Okri, who will give readings from his new book. 

The other great news is that you can view all this amazing art for free! There is no charge for admission to the exhibition, so if you can make it to London’s South Bank during the exhibition window there is no excuse to miss it – I certainly won’t! More information on the exhibiting photographers can be found on the official website. 

For more articles on climate issues and photography, see our stories: Drowning in Plastic, New emotive climate change photo series by Nick Brandt, and Your photography can help combat the climate crisis!