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“It’s so broad. It’s everything from fashion to marketing materials, things you’d find in magazines, advertising a product to architecture. So it was pretty neat to see the submissions from all the different countries, because everyone has a different influence and different environment,” she said. “It’s a very neat challenge, and very fun to be part of.”
Matechuk’s nominated photo is a black-and-white depiction of the Telus Sky building in downtown Calgary from street level, towering down on the viewer.
She said it was shot in mid-April, about a month into the COVID-19 pandemic, during the peak of public-health restrictions that kept all but essential workers home. She wanted to capture the eerie quiet of the city’s normally bustling core.
“I didn’t see a vehicle, I didn’t see people in the park, people on Stephen Avenue, it was just bizarre. I ended up staying a lot longer than I thought I would, just me and the buildings. It was pretty neat,” Matechuk said.
“I don’t know if I would have had the same appreciation of the ambience and the beauty of some of these buildings if it hadn’t been so apocalyptic down there. It was literally a city for a million, that was laid out bare for me to play with, is what it almost felt like.”
Medals will be awarded at a ceremony in Rome, Italy, on April 19. Due to COVID-19, it is not yet decided whether the event will go ahead in person, but event organizers say they are hopeful for a face-to-face ceremony.
Another Alberta photographer is also among Canada’s four finalists. Dr. Ammara Sadiq, a family physician from Spruce Grove, is in the running for her Swan Lake-esque portrait of a ballerina.
Twitter: @jasonfherring
