Medford photographer wins GLI’s ‘Show Us Summer’ contest with picture-perfect Port Jeff sunset

Andrew Camera didn’t plan the moment that would eventually win Greater Long Island’s “Show Us Summer” photo contest.

He was simply sitting at Harborfront Park in Port Jefferson, camera in hand, watching one of those summer sunsets that makes Long Islanders remember just how good they have it here.

Then two children skipped into the frame.

Click.

By the time Camera looked back up, they were gone.

“I just thought to myself, this is like — I can’t believe the setting right now,” Camera recalled. “It almost seems too picturesque to be something that someone can experience.”

That spontaneous shot — two children silhouetted against a glowing Port Jefferson Harbor at sunset — has now been voted the winner of Greater Long Island’s “Show Us Summer” photo contest.

Camera, 31, of Medford, emerged from a field of roughly 500 submissions before surviving several rounds of voting by GLI readers and followers. Thousands of votes were cast throughout the competition.

“I was very touched and honored and privileged to be a part of that top round group,” Camera said. “And then every time it just got lower, it was more and more like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’”

A perfect moment

Camera captured the winning image last summer using a Canon 90D and 300mm lens.

There was no tripod and, perhaps more importantly, no planned subjects.

Camera said he doesn’t even remember seeing the children enter the scene before pressing the shutter.

“I just remember sitting at Harborfront Park in that gorgeous sunset and thinking, ‘I’m going to take a picture. I’m going to capture this right now,’” he said.

Then he reviewed the image.

“I looked, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God,’” Camera said. “And when I looked from the image review, and then I looked up, the kids were gone.”

For Camera, it was exactly the kind of fleeting moment that keeps him reaching for his camera.

He has always loved the outdoors and the ability to preserve something beautiful before it disappears.

“Landscape photography and just capturing those beautiful moments in frame is something that just gives me that excitement,” he said.

A lifelong creative

Camera is no stranger to Greater Long Island readers.

GLI previously featured his Toy MiniNatures photography, in which he stages toys and figurines alongside real birds and woodland animals to create whimsical scenes — all captured practically and without artificial intelligence.

Camera has been interested in photography since childhood and describes himself as largely self-taught.

He studied music and has long been drawn to film, painting and other creative arts, but photography became something he continually returned to.

“I would always go to [photography] in times of stress or just relief,” he said. “I would shoot landscape. I would just go outside. I would shoot my toy photography figures.”

“As I learned and refined skills … I made sure to beef up the photography skills as best as I can outside of my career,” he added.

His Toy MiniNatures project officially began in 2023, when encouragement from friends pushed him to start displaying and selling his work at festivals and street fairs.

That eventually connected Camera with Long Island’s broader arts community, including artists in Patchogue.

“It’s just been kind of like a labor of love, doing what I love and sharing it, and also seeing and discovering other artists that way,” he said.

‘So much beauty on Long Island’

That community is part of what made winning the GLI contest meaningful for Camera.

“There is so much beauty on Long Island, and there are so many people that chase after it,” he said. “It makes me very proud to be affiliated in any respect — be it competitions, galleries, festivals — with such great talent.”

Camera said photography remains, first and foremost, an escape — a reason to get outside, slow down and notice what is around him.

And sometimes, if everything lines up just right, the result is a sunset, two children passing through the frame and a moment that lasts for only a fraction of a second.

Unless somebody happens to have a camera ready.