PECI photographer wins gold at provincial skills competition

Prince Edward Collegiate Institute’s Cynara Lewis was the best of the best photographers at the 25th annual Ontario Technological Skills Competition in Waterloo last week.

The Grade 12 student earned a gold medal for her assignments and tasks throughout the eight-hour competition at Canada’s largest skilled trades competition. The hallways of RIM Park welcomed more than 20,000 competitors and spectators as students competed to demonstrate they are the best in their field in the skilled trades.

Cynara Lewis

Lewis faced competition from about 35 students from across the province. She had won the first place award for her portfolio entries and tasks at Loyalist College’s multi-trade skills competition in March. She received a $1,000 scholarship and the opportunity to go to the provincial competition.

“It was a great experience and I’m glad I got the opportunity to go,” she said. “Aside from winning gold, it was the biggest, most impressive place I had ever seen. They had entire kitchens, computer labs, autoshops, hair styling areas, you name it, all packed into RIM Park. I never even knew this event happened but it’s way bigger than I thought it’d be.”

She is awaiting word on the national competition to be held in Mississauga, as organizers were not sure if photography has a national category yet, or if it might be a demonstration event. Overall, there are 65 contests in the automotive, service, manufacturing, construction and technology sectors of the skilled trades and technologies.  Competitors are judged on their skills related to their field, as well as their job interview skills and related soft skills.

Lewis was asked to bring an 8×10 photograph (bubbles, as seen above), a portfolio of 10 4×6 prints, and a resume for a job interview.

“While we were there we had three different tasks that we could complete during the eight hour competition,” she explained. “In one task, we had a before and after photo. We had to Photoshop things in the before photo to make it look like the after photo they provided. In another task we had to take portrait photos of people around RIM Park – competitors or random students and people, and make a 40-photograph contact sheet to hand in.”

The last task, she explained, was taking a photo of an ordinary piece of printer paper, in a creative way, with the paper as the main focus.

“That one was tricky,” said Lewis. “We could crumple it up, which almost everyone did, write on it, put water on it, anything.”

Upon receiving the gold medal, she was photographed by a professional.