A 14-year-old Richmond student has won the Vancouver International Photography Festival’s student photo contest.
Weiyang Ma, in Grade 9 at RA McMath Secondary School, received Best in Show for his photograph “I See You When I’m Sleeping,” of a long-eared owl in Delta’s Boundary Bay.
“When owls are sleeping they have one eye closed and one eye open,” he said. “Half their brain shuts down and one half is operational.”
Other animals like dolphins, manatees and seals have this ability as well. But researchers believe birds are unique because they can choose to let both halves of their brain sleep, or keep one half awake to watch for danger.
Wildlife photography is Ma’s favourite wintertime activity. In the summer, he turns to long-exposure photography to capture stunning images of the Milky Way. He likes going out to take pictures with his mother, who helps carry some of the camera equipment.
Ma's only goals are to keep practicing to capture better images that tell stories of what he sees outside.
As part of the contest prize, Ma will be named Aberdeen Centre’s photography intern for the year. That means he’ll be offered gigs photographing events at the mall in exchange for a small honourarium.
He and the other four other winners also received passes to VIPF 2019 and $100 gift cards to Aberdeen Centre.
“It’s really nice,” Ma said. “I actually didn’t’ expect to win, because I learned about the contest about two hours before the due date.”
Here are the other four winning photographs:
“Earth to Sky”
By Amir Attarhosseini of AR MacNeill Secondary School
“Future”
By Helen Li of Steveston-London Secondary School
“Touch of Heaven”
By Jonathan Folk of Hugh Boyd Secondary School
Untitled
By Peter Ge of JN Burnett Secondary School
The contest was open to all public school students in Richmond, and hosted jointly between VIPF, the school board and Aberdeen Centre.
