COCHRANE— Local photographer and Team Canada member Jacquie Matechuk has qualified for the top 10 in the World Photographic Cup.
Thirty-eight teams from countries from around the world have made entries into the competition’s several categories, including commercial, reportage or photojournalism, illustration or digital art, nature, portraiture or wedding photography.
The prestigious competition pits the world's best photographers against one another in a contest to determine the world’s most striking photos.
It is considered by many to be the Tour de France of photography competitions.
“They call it the Olympics of photographic art, because it is an individual competition, but in the end, they look to try and award positions for the nation as far as how they finish,” Matechuk said. “You’re trying to build the strongest possible team you can so that you get the most top finished, but of course each individual will have the opportunity to literally win a gold, silver or bronze medal as well.”
Matechuk’s photo, titled “Zip It,” beat hundreds of submissions from the world’s best photographers to earn its place in the top ten.
It is a digital illustration of the TELUS Sky building in downtown Calgary.
The gloomy, monochrome photo superimposes the building against a mirror image of itself, and in the centre sits a zipper which appears to be joining the twin structures together.
It is a dark, melancholy image, in which the sky-blue is replaced by a deep black, hearkening back to the iconic images of famed landscape photographer Ansel Adams.
Matechuk said she wanted to capture the uncanny feeling of walking the deserted streets of downtown Calgary in spring of 2020, when the first round of COVID-19 lockdown measures were in full effect in the province.
“I had walked more than 12 city blocks. When I got there, I just went to look at a couple of buildings and take a shot of something. I started to walk around and after walking 12 square blocks I ran into two people the whole time. The entire core just felt so eerie and different, and it was such a gloomy day— I just got lost in time,” she said. “I had time to notice angles and lines.”
She said when she got the image uploaded onto her computer, she was playing with the image, trying to determine which perspective worked best. She had the idea to mirror the image and realized it created an entirely different effect.
The building itself is home to the Northern Lights art display. Each night the TELUS Sky building is lit up with shifting colours.
Matechuk’s image is a stark depiction of the usual character of the building.
“It was just the day. The day and the temperature of our landscape at that point in time with the lockdown. It had been over a month at that point and it seemed to really sink in, people were already noticing the effects of the lockdown. Certainly, walking around there it was unlike anything I’ve seen or felt before,” she said. “[It felt] almost apocalyptic. It was so weird. Where did everybody go?”
Although the uncanny sensation of walking through a deserted downtown core was unsettling, she said, harnessing those emotions and trying to capture them in a photo is why photographic art is so alluring to her as an artist.
“I think that’s the fun part of photographic art. You can depict your views, your feelings, your emotions in a single image, and whatever influence that happens to be at the time. For me, it was just being down there,” she said. “It was just bizarre to be down there in something that’s usually packed with people, and hustle and bustle, and cars and there was nothing. There were no cars, no people, just nothing. It was great inspiration for me anyway.”
To be selected as one of the top 10 submissions in the digital art category was an honour, Matechuk said, especially considering the calibre of competition she is up against.
“It’s quite surreal, I’ll be honest. I’m in awe when I go through that art, so to imagine being in there, a part of it, I shake my head,” she said.
The World Photographic Cup made the announcement of the top 10 photos via a livestream, which she watched with her husband. When she heard the announcement, she said she was shocked.
“I was trying to film it as they were announcing it and I started screaming, so the video didn’t turn out at all,” she said, laughing.
Four other members of Team Canada also made the top 10 in their respective categories.
Matechuk said she hopes to win gold, but has already derived tremendous satisfaction from placing in the top 10.
“I feel bad even bad for asking or thinking of getting more than what I’ve already gotten out of it. Ultimately to medal would be phenomenal— There’s a handful of Canadian artists that have done that, so that would be the absolute greatest compliment.”
