Wildlife photographers live for the moment.
Well, two moments, actually.
There’s that brief instant when they release the shutter. It’s a split second of creativity where they see something extraordinary. They hold their breath and push and if all goes well, something beautiful is born.
Then there’s the moment when they check the camera to see if they actually captured what they think they saw.
Were the aperture and shutter speed right? Will it be in focus? Is everything OK?
Cochrane’s Jacquie Matechuk experienced both moments as she watched a great grey owl hunt mice near Cremona last March.
Every time he left his fencepost and swooped down to the snow, he came up with a mouse.
“I was probably a good 20 minutes watching him and then as he decided he was done and had his day’s fill, he took off.
“He turned his body, looking to the right, which is what you see in that photo. And then flew right towards me,” she said.
And then the owl veered off and was gone.
“So it was purely luck as far as that exact moment in time – obviously that's a split second. You don't plan for something like that, but it’s one of those things where you know he flew past and it's ‘oh wow, he looked right at me.’”
The second moment confirmed the first.
“I started to review the pictures and it's like, 'God, he did. He did. I got it,'” Matechuk recalled.
She said she had a kind of a quiet celebration, as she knew she had something special.
“Yeah, it was exciting.”
The result was enough to garner her a place on the short list of photographers as part of Team Canada’s entry into this year’s World Photographic Cup (WPC) competition, in the wildlife category. There are 24 photographers in total and 10 are from Alberta.
Kristian Bogner from Dead Man’s Flats was nominated in the sports category, for a shot of a surfer, and Matechuk had a second nomination in sports, for her shot of a mountain climber in Utah.
Canada’s images can be viewed at wpcteamcanada.com.
The WPC is a unique Olympic style competition that not only celebrates the world’s finest photographic art, but it also fosters the spirit of friendship and cooperation between exceptional artists across the globe with 35 countries participating.
Each contestant had their images survive three rounds of qualifying to become part of Team Canada’s submission to be showcased on the world stage.
The Top 10 finalists, who are in the running for world medals, will be made public in January 2024 at Imaging USA. Then at the World Photographic Cup awards ceremony in Dallas, Texas on April 27, 2024 the medals will be announced, as well as which country’s team has won the World Photographic Cup.
The WPC is an Olympic style photographic competition, where national teams compete in different categories.
Matechuk’s sports entry, taken on a day off from shooting another project in Moab, Utah in November, is not your typical action shot common to that category.
She was impressed by the way the climber performed.
“It's a slow, thoughtful process as they're climbing up, but there was still a level of intensity I thought, because of all that negative space and just the sheer magnitude of his undertaking, I thought it was just beautifully, beautifully executed.”
