Cheer Up Christchurch Photography Competition

Posted on August 1, 2011

I recently entered a local photography/video contest. The theme was Cheer Up Christchurch – a post Earthquake theme with no photographs or videos of earthquake damage allowed.

I won best photograph for the below image and my prize was a free digital point and shoot camera!

The photograph is of a sunflower in my garden with a monarch butterfly on it. I had planted some sunflowers in the garden before the quakes and they took forever to start growing. However, following the earthquake and the amount of liquefaction around (which seemed to be a plant fertiliser) I noticed one morning that my sunflowers were in full bloom. As I came outside to have a closer look I noticed a monarch butterfly floating around them peacefully.

Each morning for the next week the butterfly would be fluttering around and landing on the sunflowers. In a time when the mood in Christchurch was somber to say the least, it was definitely a cheerful welcome and put a smile on my face each morning.