KAMSACK — Fourteen photographers submitted a total of 121 pictures for the Kamsack and District Horticultural Society’s contest to find photos for the Society’s 2023 calendar.
The theme of this year’s contest was “flora, fauna and fungi of the local area,” said Alva Beauchamp, who worked on the Society’s calendar committee with Karen Pfeifer, Eleanor Lenderbeck and Cindy Koreluik.
The photographs were judged on Oct. 3 by Marilyn Lachambre, Beauchamp said.
Tanya Riabko placed first and won $75 for a photo of spruce trees in silhouette at sunset, which will be the October photo, and she won the $50 second-place prize for a photograph of wild mushrooms, which will be the picture for July.
Jim Beauchamp placed third and received $25 for a photograph of yellow and green fields under an ominous cloudy sky. His photo will be featured in June.
Honourable mention went to Audrey Binns for a photo of a sleeping fawn that will decorate the month of May, and to Eleanor Lenderbeck for a photo of a clump of blooming crocuses that will be featured in March.
These five photos plus another seven will be featured in the calendar for each of the 12 months of the year, while many of the others will be included in a collage of pictures, Beauchamp said, explaining that the plan is to assure that at least one photo from each of the 14 photographers’ submissions will be used in the calendar.
“There were many nice photos,” Marilyn Lachambre said when asked how she selected the three winners and two honourable mentions.
“I chose the first-place photo because the trees are so beautiful in silhouette with the vivid layers of the sunset colours,” Lachambre said. “I enjoyed the topography, the composition and the beautiful photography.
“I liked the way the light of the background framed the mushrooms in the second-place picture,” she said.
“The three coloured fields under the stormy clouds, is very interesting,” she said of the third-placed picture.
Beauchamp said that Binns, who lives in the area during the summers, was on a riding mower when she had come upon the sleeping fawn.
“She almost ran over it,” she said, adding that the baby deer did not move while she took the time to take the picture.
The society plans to print about 60 copies of the 2023 calendar, which should be available by mid-November. The calendar will include the phases of the moon and Canadian holidays.
Copies of the calendar may be purchased at a couple downtown businesses or from any member of the Kamsack horticulture society.
