This year's theme is wide open. Feel free to colour outside the lines a bit.

Initially themed around "celebration," we recognize that this subject may have been too narrow and potentially limiting. We want to see the full spectrum of what makes our municipality special.

Any photo that captures people, pets, places, things and experiences somewhere in Lesser Slave River is fair game.

The MD Moments Photo Contest is open to anyone who lives within the borders of our municipality—including Slave Lake residents. MD staff members are also invited to participate.

Each contestant can enter up to five photos. However, a contestant can only win once per contest.

To qualify for a prize, photos must be high-resolution (approximately 10" x 8" at 300 DPI). A high-resolution iPhone image (3088 x 2320 landscape format) would be the absolute minimum acceptable quality. A good rule of thumb: the bigger the better.

The MD website can handle uploads of up to 50MB. This will likely be more than enough muscle to handle up to five of your photo submissions.

The primary selection criterion is the number of votes a photo receives between November 13 and November 23, 2025. The highest-voted photos will then be reviewed against the eligibility requirements.

• Photos failing to meet minimum image quality thresholds will be disqualified.
• Photos submitted by an owner who has already won will also be disqualified.

If a photo is disqualified, the next highest-voted photo will be reviewed. This process continues until 13 verified winners have been selected.

Note that we also review photos before the voting stage and disallow any that don't adhere to the rules.

No. Even though you may enter up to five photos, you're only eligible to win one prize per contest. If, at the end of the contest, you have two or three photos at the top of the heap, the most popular will be selected as a winner (provided it aligns with the contest rules), and your others will be ineligible.

But hey...if you have two or three photos at the top of the heap, you should still be happy!

It is possible that some of the top-voted photos won't make the cut due to:

1. Poor resolution - if resolution is too low, it's gotta go. Some photos can technically be the right resolution, but the wrong pixel depth (meaning they were small photos that someone has enlarged).
2. Wrong orientation - a photo will likely be discarded if it's vertical instead of horizontal. Remember, the winning photos will be featured in a wall calendar.
3. Doctored photo - if a photo is grayscale instead of colour, or has been filtered/manipulated beyond acceptable photo optimization, it will be disallowed.
4. Vote manipulation - we can see where the votes are coming from, and the type of computer or device that casts each vote. If we notice multiple votes from the same IP address or digital fingerprint, we will manually subtract any fraudulent votes. If it happens more than a few times, we will likely disqualify the submission.

We strive to ensure that the photos most loved by voters are the ones that make it into the MD's 2026 wall calendar. We will start at the top of the heap and carefully inspect each photo.

When a good photo is borderline, we'll do our utmost to help it make the cut. However, we must also be fair to entrants who followed the rules to the letter.

We agree that it's a bummer to get the most votes and still be disqualified. However, we need to remain mindful of the end product: a calendar that showcases the beauty and diversity of our region through high-quality community-submitted images.