A mother-daughter duo have taken home top prizes for the 2026 Community Calendar Competition with two stunning photographs.
12-year-old Gemma Dearden and her mother Heather Dearden will have their photos featured in the Upper Yarra Community Enterprise’s (UYCE) 2026 Community Calendar, where the other 12 winners’ photos will be shown.
Gemma was watching Stranger Things on Friday 19 September when her mother delivered the news that she’d won the Peoples’ Choice award with her photograph, Family of Four.
“My mom showed me [the email] of who won and then I was really excited and I couldn’t sleep,” Gemma said.
“I didn’t think that I would actually win, it’s the first time I’ve ever entered the competition.”
Gemma and Ms Dearden were two of 12 winners of 95 entries which saw over 1500 votes cast and a total prize pool of $2300.
Ms Dearden’s entry, Hoo, took home the Community Bank Staff award which saw her receive a a prize of $150.
But Gemma can take home the bragging rights as she topped her mother’s award, having won $300 for the more prestigious prize of the two.
Ms Dearden said she was “very proud” of her daughter as Gemma had entered the competition after watching her mother enter every year.
“It’s exciting for her to actually enter something of her own and win something,” Ms Dearden said.
The Judges’ Choice award winner was Finn Saurine and Matis Heenan took home the top prize in the u18 category.
Cat McKay was the runner up while Bella-Kay Streeter was the u18 runner up.
UYCE senior administration officer Tracey Alderman said the competition’s purpose was to showcase the beauty of the Yarra Ranges while celebrating local photographers.
“The whole idea of the competition is to showcase the beautiful area that we live in and everything that it has to offer. So it was really good to see a range of pictures in terms of nature.”
Gemma’s picture certainly showcased the stunning environment, having masterfully captured a worm’s eye view of four towering trees with a sprawling green canopy.
Gemma was on a photo walk with a highly celebrated local photographer, Suzanne Phoenix, when she broke away from the main group and stumbled across the scene.
“I was walking ahead because everyone was taking pictures of the mushrooms and stuff,” Gemma said.
“I saw this really big tree and then I was climbing the tree… I saw the four trees and then laid down in the tree and took pictures of it.”
Ms Dearden gave full props to her daughter for the picture, saying Gemma had gone on the photo walk by herself and therefore she had no influence on the final product.
Meanwhile, Ms Dearden was driving home from work one night when an owl serendipitously landed in a tree in front of her.
“I sat there in the dark with a torch and the owl for about 45 minutes, just taking some beautiful photos of him,” she said.
Ms Alderman said she was “rapt” with the quality of entries this year.
“Unfortunately not everyone can win so there’s some real quality entries that we received that unfortunately didn’t receive prizes.”
She said the competition was a great chance to support local photographers to get experience in entering competitions while also receiving financial prizes.
“The fact that this competition is run within our community to showcase the community and some of the upcoming photographers receiving financial prizes, I think that’s fantastic.
“If that helps them upgrade their own cameras or they can use it towards something photography-related, artwork-related, that’s even better.
“It’s what we want to see, we want to see our communities thrive,” Ms Alderman said.
