December/January: Cover Search 2025 Winners

When frogs began making their way into the koi pond in her Mendham Township backyard, Marta Longo decided to build a separate pond just for frogs and insects. That is where she took the striking photograph that you see on the cover of this month’s issue as the winner of New Jersey Monthly and Unique Photo’s annual cover search.

The tiny creature, only the size of a fingernail, was in the process of transitioning from one habitat (water, as a tadpole) to another (land, as a frog). Marta loves that, in this photo, it looks like the frog “doesn’t know what to make of this new world.”

A retired emergency-medicine physician, Marta has always loved nature. She hopes others are inspired to care about the environment, too, as they learn more about it. “We as humans are very unaware of some of the magical things that happen in nature,” she says. “I think with increased awareness comes increased care. My hope is that we take care of our place, we take care of our nature, we take care of our environment.”

See all of this year’s winning photos inside the issue.