Vertical Magazine is delighted to announce that John Pitsakis has been named the Grand Prize winner of the 2022 Vertical Photo Contest.

As the contest winner, Pitsakis’s dynamic photo of an Erickson S-64 fighting a towering Greek wildfire appears on the front cover of the December ’22/January ’23 edition of Vertical Magazine, and he also receives the $1,000 Grand Prize.

“We received a record-breaking number of entries this year as aviation photographers returned to the field in droves,” said Vertical Publisher Mike Reyno. “The quality was, as ever, extremely high, but we think our readers will agree that we’ve got some very worthy winners.”

There were over 1,700 entries in this year’s contest, from photographers from (almost) every continent. Their work recorded the huge breadth of operations that helicopters perform on a daily basis.

Photos could be entered into the contest in one of three categories: civil, military, and people at work. In addition to the Grand Prize winner, there are three winners in each category, who receive $750 for a first-place finish, $500 for a second-place finish, and $250 for a third-place finish. 

The winners are Raphaël Grinevald (first place, civil); Cy Phenice (second place, civil); Simon Iglesias (third place, civil); Jaco Kotze (first place, military); Scott Kellerman (second place, military); Peter Prosser (third place, military); Raven Harris (first place, people at work); Branden Bourque (second place, people at work); and Diego Ferreiro (third place, people at work).

This year, we also introduced the Skip Robinson Award. Created in memory of legendary Vertical photographer Skip Robinson, the award is presented to an outstanding photograph depicting an aircraft that works in military or parapublic operations — Skip’s favorite subjects. Creigh McIntyre is the first winner of the Skip Robinson Award, and receives $250.

To showcase more of the spectacular photos that were entered into the contest, Vertical is once again creating a special bonus issue to showcase honorable mentions, and this will be available later in December.

The 2022 Vertical Photo Contest was sponsored by PAG, Airbus, and Metro Aviation.