Fine Art 1st place winner

In the spring of 2022 I became aware of a car graveyard quite close to my house. At first sight, I was entranced by the rusted, broken and decaying vintage cars that were slowly being reclaimed by nature. Each of the vehicles in the yard once had a life and a story all its own, but those stories had ended and they were now left to rot and decay in a tangled mess of earth and metal. I was caught by the idea of giving some of these vehicles a new life and a final story by ‘salvaging’ them through photography – by digitally extracting them and placing them into a new background in the context of a story, so that the true beauty of their rust and decay could be appreciated through the restorative powers of space and imagination. Everything deserves a final story.

Patty Maher was born in Toronto and completed undergraduate and graduate degrees in English Literature at the University of Guelph. Her work as a fine art photographer began in 2010 and since then has been featured and recognized in numerous online and print publications around the world including a video interview with Yahoo Productions created for the series "The Weekly Flickr". Patty has also received recognition in a number of prestigious photography contests including the PX3 Prie de la Photography Paris, Moscow International Foto Awards, and the International Photography Awards.