The winners of the 2022 Comedy Pet Photo Awards have been announced. The top prize went to Kenichi Morinaga, whose photo of two cats sitting on a fence makes them look like they share one head.
The competition says that the photo, which is called “Boom! Boom!” and shows two cats connected in a cartoon-like way, beat out about 2,000 other entries to win the top prize. Some of the other finalists were shown in a list of finalists that came out in July. Morinaga is from Japan. He says he likes to go to the small islands around his country and take pictures of the stray cats he finds there.
“All of a sudden, I was so interested in what cats did on the street that I had to take pictures of them,” he says. “When I went back to Japan, I kept looking for them. They make me happy, especially after the last two years of the pandemic. Even when they are doing something serious, they are so funny. This amazing competition reminded me that people all over the world find these kinds of moves by animals to be funny, cute, and heartwarming, not just in Japan.
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Morinaga won £2,000 in cash and a £5,000 donation from Animal Friends Pet Insurance to an animal welfare or conservation charity of his choice. His photo was also chosen as the winner of the “Best Cat Photo” category.
He says that after much thought, he decided to give his money to The Cat Welfare Group, a group on the South Coast of the UK that helps stray and abandoned cats find new homes.
The Comedy Pet Photo Awards says that this year’s judging was the closest they’ve ever seen, with only 10 points separating the top six places. The Category Winners, which are listed below, came from seven different countries.
The website for the Comedy Pet Photo Awards features not only the winners but also the runners-up and those who were given special recognition.