The 48 Hour Photography Challenge took place on Sunday, Feb. 25, at Centre 64, and it was a full house of enthusiastic photography lovers.
The challenge featured nine photographers who had 48 hours to shoot, edit and compile a slideshow of images. The photographers that competed included Cam Koerselman, Franka Sparks, Anthony Flick, Ashley Sorensen, Liam Westergaard, Corey Bullock, Aric Keane, Kyle Singbeil, and Jenny Bateman. The event was hosted by local adventure enthusiast Steve Tersmette, organized by local event planner Natalie Skokan, and local musician Oliver Mcquaid took care of the tech side of things.
The proceeds from the event went to the Kimberley Trails Society (KTS), and just over $900 was raised. KTS was also offering half-price trail memberships, of which they sold 36. The event also collected two bags of empty cans, that were donated to the doggie treat program at the Kimberley Transfer Station.
Cam Koerselman took home the grand prize of $500, donated by Tourism Kimberley, chosen by a panel of judges.
One of the judges was City Councillor Darryl Oakley, who says he was very impressed with all of the photographer’s work.
“It was quite an event,” said Oakley. “I am just blown away by some of the photographers. Some of the shots of Bootleg Mountain from those 48 hours, wow, they were just amazing. It was a lot of fun.”
Franka Sparks won the people’s choice award, which was a dinner for two at Stonefire Pizzeria along with two cycling jackets from Kootenay Mountain Works. The people’s choice award was chosen by audience members.
Overall winner, Cam Koerselman grew up in Coaldale, AB, and started photography and film after taking a wildlife filmmaking course at the Bamfield Marine Science Centre at 23. He then worked for Parks Canada as a filmmaker for four summers while in university.
He says that his favourite part of the challenge was “finding new ways of shooting old things”.
“I also shot more photos of Kimberley in the two days than I have in two years,” said Koerselman. “The only theme I tried to follow was to showcase cool things you can do in the trail network. I also tried to capture the views you can get, as we are pretty lucky in that regard.”
In terms of the most challenging part, Koerselman says it was getting 50-60 quality photos in 48 hours.
“Normally, if I get a couple of photos at sunrise, and a couple at sunset I consider that great. The cold didn’t help either,” he said.
Koerselman shoots with a Canon 70D, uses Photoshop to edit photos, and Premier Pro to edit videos.
People’s choice winner, Franka Sparks says her favourite part of the challenge is when everyone is watching the slideshow; seeing how it all comes together after all of the work put into it.
“It’s very rewarding when you get to see people seeing your photos for the first time,” said Sparks, who lives in Canmore, AB and comes to Kimberley to vacation.
“In June we bought a house up on DeWolfe and have been coming to it as much as we can,” Sparks said. “I have been doing photography a little bit throughout the years. When we travel I would take my mom’s camera. I did some photography classes here and there. In October I did the first 24-hour photography challenge and have been taking more photos ever since. Then for Christmas this year, I got my very own camera.”
The most challenging part, says Sparks, is editing the photos and compiling them into a slideshow.
“Quite a bit of the editing is very new to me, and I haven’t totally figured out how it all works,” she explained.
The theme for the challenge was winter wonderland, so Sparks says she took advantage of that with an Alice in Wonderland theme.
“There were many things that I had planned to do but just did not end up doing,” said Sparks. “For example, I wanted the ending tea party scene with all the characters to be at the tea spot, but I just didn’t end up having enough time to do that. I don’t think I fully knew how it was going to turn out until it was totally done.”
Sparks shoots with a Sony A6000, uses Snapspeed to edit and compiled her images in Adobe.
