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Talented Bay youth roamed the streets, beaches and hills searching for inspiration to capture their ‘true colours’ on camera.

For the third year, the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic’s graphic design department held its photo competition in May – this time with a twist.

Students were sent out with a digital camera and had 48 hours to create a montage of three photos to ‘wow’ the judging panel.
Photography tutor on the Diploma in Graphic Design, Anne Shirley, was impressed with the calibre of creativity and talent on display this year.

“This is exactly the calibre of student work we are looking for when potential Polytechnic students are submitting portfolios as part of the application process.

“We were especially impressed with the sheer number of outstanding entries and hope to see many of these young people doing well in the graphic design field.”

A physical display was set up at the ‘Thanks’ store on Spring Street during the school holidays and at the Polytechnic Windermere campus where the public could vote. The judging panel sat down, taking the votes into consideration to decide the winners.

The Weekend Sun and Bay of Plenty Polytechnic would like to announce the winner of the competition; Year 12 Nicole Melville from Mount Maunganui College.

Nicole says the idea came to her based around her love of parties and party decorating.

“My friend and I love parties, so we got so much confetti, paint and balloons and the idea came from that.”

Her work wasn’t without a bit of creative mess, taking her “a whole week” to get the glitter out of the carpet.

She took more than 100 photos to capture the moment perfectly, but says she knew right from the start this was what she wanted to do.

Nicole current studies photography at college and hopes to continue on after she has finished school.

The prizes sponsored by The Weekend Sun and Thanks are being presented to the winners at their school assemblies on September 16.