There’s a good reason the MusĂ©e HĂ©ritage Museum is offering this year’s Take Your Best Shot contest before Canada Day instead of well afterward.
With the whole sesquicentennial of Confederation thing and all, museum staff figured that it was a great opportunity to showcase young artists and their expressions of what the country means to them at the same time as the country’s 150th birthday itself, rather than much later on in the fall as it usually would.
And so, photographers as young as Grade 3-aged are being beckoned to show what Canada means to them in their own photographs. Pictures of maple leafs? Check. A hockey player missing his two front teeth? You bet. Two people in snowshoes apologizing to a beaver under the northern lights? Take off, eh. It was a beaver dancing a log driver’s waltz while riding a moose wearing a CBC toque. Now that’s what I’m talking aboot.
This contest and subsequent exhibit is one of those special programs that really goes a long way to charging interest up in the museum.
“It’s really important. It’s not just kids that are excited about it; it’s adults as well,” said Shari Strachan, the museum director.
Adults aren’t allowed into Take Your Best Shot but members of the St. Albert Photography Club have been busy building up their own portfolios for a special exhibit to run concurrently with this show. The club’s show – under the theme ‘Our Canada’ – will be a special celebration of its 25th anniversary, a mere 125 years younger than the country itself.
“People that I’ve talked with ... everybody’s excited that we’re doing something that’s related to 2017 but reflects individual thoughts about how we all view Canada.”
The contest is open to students from grades 3 to 12 with a panel of judges choosing the top nine photographs in each of three age categories: grades 3 to 6, 7 to 9, and 10 to 12. The top three photos from each group will receive prizes consisting of gift certificates from McBain Camera.
A special display in the Discovery Room will be set up for chosen submissions from students in Grade 2 and younger but that is separate from the contest.
The deadline for submissions is April 29. Entries will be judged on each photographer's choice of subject, creativity, quality of photo, and written description.
Winners will be notified by May 20. The exhibit will run from June 20 to Sept. 10.
To learn more about the contest and to download the entry form, please visit the museum's website at www.museeheritage.ca. Only one entry per person. Call 780-459-1528 for more details.
