Finalist, Ice Fishing Huts, Lake Winnipeg by Sandra Herber

Winters in Manitoba, Canada, are long and often bitterly cold. When the temperature drops, and thick ice forms, lakes and rivers in the province play host to some amazing folk architecture in the form of ice fishing huts. These huts, shacks or permies (as they are called in Manitoba) must be transportable, protect their occupants from the elements and allow access to the ice below for fishing. Once these requirements have been met, the owners are free to express their personalities in the shape, structure and decoration of their huts - they are large or small, decorated or plain, luxurious or utilitarian and everything in between. I captured these images on Lake Winnipeg in December 2019. In creating this series, I was inspired by the many photographers who have been drawn to these huts as subjects, including Richard Johnson (his Ice Huts series), who has photographed them across Canada. My hope for this series, which is a continuation of work I started in 2018, is to showcase the quirky charm of these huts by presenting a select few in a typology. The typology - showing the huts framed in the same, minimalist style and in the same lighting - allows the viewer to notice similarities in function and uniqueness in form, as well as to display these utilitarian structures as beautiful works of art.