Out of more than 11,000 amazing photos submitted to the Your Best Shot 2022 group, we’ve finally whittled it down to the best of your best. Thank you to everyone who contributed images, feedback, and passion to our favorite competition of the year, and thank you all for being part of the world’s best photo community.
Without further ado, here are the winners of Your Best Shot 2022:
PEOPLE:
Mima, September 2022 by Eszter Valy
The photographer:
“I am a Budapest-based photographer. I have been taking photographs for about 10 years now. My main subjects are portraits, landscapes, and nature. I graduated as a photographer in 2015. I started my ‘Mima’ project in 2013 as a school project when she was 89. She is now 99 years old, and I am really enjoying this project. During these years I took hundreds of photographs of her. You can check a few of them in my Flickr photostream if you like. It makes me happy when I see the result of my work. One thing is for sure: I’m never going to put my camera down.”
NATURE:
World of Magic by Micke Vmix
The photographer:
“I’m a 52 year old Swedish guy who spends almost all weekends lugging around camera equipment in the forests. Over the years, this has developed into finding simple everyday subjects that stand out in some way together with the surroundings. Usually, it’s just leaves, flowers, the odd landscape, and a lot of mushrooms.”
How this moment was captured:
“This photo was taken during one of my favorite times of the year, when the maple leaves have fallen. To achieve this look I almost always shoot wide open or close by. I like to sacrifice depth of field and gain character in the out-of-focus areas instead. Postproduction was done in Capture One only. I like to push the edits a bit further than normal to get a ‘painterly’ effect. This photo really popped out from the rest I had in mind, so it was an obvious choice.”
ANIMALS:
Fou de Bassan / Northern Gannet by Marie-Josée D’Amour
The photographer:
“I started bird photography 6 years ago and I love it. I live in Longueuil, Québec, Canada, and I am fortunate to have a cabin in the Gaspe area which gives me the opportunity to go to the Bonaventure Island once every year.”
How this moment was captured:
“On June 22nd, when this picture was taken at the Northern Gannets colony (more than 100,000 birds), it was nesting time for them. I was most of the time lying on the grass taking shots when this Gannet came just in front of me to collect materials to make a cozy nest. With my 100-400mm sigma zoom, I had to zoom out at 315mm to only get the head. I was excited to see this beautiful bird with this feather and grass in its beak. At home, I knew I had a nice shot to work on. I worked for several hours in Photoshop to obtain the result I had in mind. I was really happy with my work.”
URBAN:
Swiss Brutalist Architecture by Jane Meling
The photographer:
“I grew up on an island on the West coast of Norway, and I discovered the love for photography from a very young age. In the mid 1980’s, I trained as a professional photographer and, albeit not being a working professional for many years, photography has always played an important part in my life as a creative outlet. I have been living and travelling between Switzerland, the UK and Norway for many years now, and have been lucky enough to explore all three countries photographically.”
How this moment was captured:
“I have had this location on my architectural ‘bucket list’ for a while, and I finally had the opportunity to make the long overdue trip last autumn. I have had a fascination for Post-War Modernist and Brutalist architecture for years. The textures and geometry often lend themselves for good photography, and Switzerland is a Mecca for this type of architecture. The Novazzano complex (not far from Chiasso in Canton Ticino, Switzerland) is no exception. This residential complex is comprised of around 100 residential apartments set around an upper and lower courtyard, but probably their most distinctive feature is this series of circular archways that run underneath the apartments, linking the street level parking with the upper courtyard.
The shot was taken using my trusted Rolleiflex SL66 with the 80mm planar. The film I used was Ilford Delta 100. Shot at 100 ISO. Architect: Mario Botta, 1989-1992”
THROUGH HER/THEIR LENS:
Enchanting scent of lilac by Angelina Todorovic Stanic
How this moment was captured:
“This photo was made spontaneously while I was walking through my garden with my granddaughter Tara. We were looking for a flower that smelled the best. That day I made a lot of photos in the garden but this one was my favorite even though it looked unconvincing at the moment, dominated by cold colors: green, blue and purple. Only in black and white, Tara’s expression and the composition came to light. Between black and white, I usually chose that in between, grey, so I’ve used KODAK-T-MAX 3200 2C PRESET, and I’ve added my processing, low contrast, gentle grain.”
The photographer:
Check out this article from 2020 by Angelina on her top tips for taking photos indoors!
OPEN:
Sundial… by boat by Richard March
How this moment was captured:
“As a back story to the image: it was taken at Tollesbury, Essex, UK. It was early evening. My original plan was for some long exposure work with yachts in the water, however I’d not checked the tide times and as you can see, there was no water. So instead I put my drone, a DJI Mavic Mini up to see what I could capture. I could see this in the distance but didn’t know what it actually looked like until I got over it and dropped the camera view. I think it looks like a sundial or roman numerals on a clock face. A unique image, probably impossible to ever replicate.”