![\"Luna](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1780852395_944_default.jpg\")
Luna Langlois poses with her silver medal from the Skills Canada photography competition, alongside teacher Nikita Morozov. (Submitted by Luna Langlois)First time for N.W.T.<\/p>\nLuna Langlois says she\u2019s loved photography since she was young, and it\u2019s a passion that\u2019s grown into more than a hobby. Now, she has a silver medal for her photography from the national Skills Canada competition to show for it.<\/p>\n
It was the second time the soon-to-be \u00c9cole Sir John Franklin High School graduate competed on the national stage in photography. The year before, her result wasn\u2019t so glowing.<\/p>\n
The first time, she said she\u2019d gone in with a very specific mindset: \u201cI\u2019m going to learn, and I\u2019m going to have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI really wanted to understand the competition more,\u201d Langlois said in an interview with CBC’s The Trailbreaker, saying she wanted to improve her skills and learn from the other competitors.<\/p>\n
After she got her results in 2025 \u2014 she doesn\u2019t recall where she placed \u2014 she wasn\u2019t disappointed. \u201cI kind of knew it wouldn\u2019t be that high.\u201d<\/p>\n
When she returned to Yellowknife, she got to work towards the goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw what I did wrong,” she said. “For the year after, I just practiced over and over.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second time around, she was ready. From May 28 to 29, Langlois and competitors from other provinces created and finished a number of projects that would be scored by judges.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, it\u2019s the portfolio at the end, with all the photos you took during the two days of competition,\u201d Langlois said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Once it was over, she had nine pieces in the portfolio from assignments including photographing mystery objects, staging a studio photo shoot, designing a magazine cover, and creating a composite image.<\/p>\n
The day after the competition, she found out she\u2019d placed second at the medal ceremony.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just in shock, I thought \u2018There\u2019s no way!\u2019,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Luna Langlois poses with her silver medal from the Skills Canada photography competition, alongside teacher Nikita Morozov. (Submitted by Luna Langlois)First time for N.W.T.<\/p>\n
For Lee Sacrey, Langlois\u2019 result marked a milestone for the Northwest Territories on the national Skills Canada stage, although he found out about the result earlier than she did.<\/p>\n
Sacrey is the technical chair of the Skills Canada Northwest Territories Photography Competition and is on the National Skills Canada Technical Committee for Photography. He said he was monitoring the competition and the judging.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew roughly that it seemed to be going fairly well for Luna, but I couldn\u2019t tell for sure,\u201d Sacrey said.<\/p>\n
After the competition ended, his colleague tallied the scores, and gave the final results to Sacrey that evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe made me read the secondary placements in front of our group knowing I would just be a mess,\u201d Sacrey said.<\/p>\n
Sacrey has been involved with photography at Skills Canada since it was added as a competition in 2011.<\/p>\n
![\"Lee](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1780852395_616_default.jpg\")
Lee Sacrey is the Technical Chair of Skills Canada Northwest Territories Photography Competition and is on the National Skills Canada Technical Committee for Photography. (Submitted by Lee Sacrey)<\/p>\n
In the past, the highest an N.W.T. competitor had placed was fourth or fifth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was amazed those years that we got that close,” Sacrey said. “I was completely out of myself when I saw that silver medal position. It was a couple of days before I could talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the differences between jurisdictions at the national level are stark. Most other provinces have better access to facilities, equipment and technology that participants from the N.W.T. generally don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent the better part of the first seven or eight years really modifying everything that we did, trying to give the N.W.T. as much of an advantage to be competitive as we could,\u201d Sacrey said. \u201cKnowing that some of the bigger provinces have available to them for coaching and resources and equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Langlois, she doesn\u2019t have an official coach, but she has mentors. Nikita Morozov and Brent Currie at her school, and her uncle Stephen Verhaeghe, who lives in Yellowknife, encouraged her interest in photography early on.<\/p>\n
He gave Langlois his old camera for Christmas in 2020, a Nikon with two lenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was amazing, now I actually had equipment to start doing my photography,\u201d Langlois said. For two years, she said she worked with that camera.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned that camera all by myself, I did a lot of mistakes, messed up a lot of settings. But I\u2019d just call him, he always helped me out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two years later, she moved from Quebec to Yellowknife, and lived with her aunt and uncle. Over the year she lived with them, Verhaeghe continued sharing his photography knowledge with her.<\/p>\n
For her second national competition, she had more at her disposal, and not just the skills she\u2019d practiced throughout the year. Her uncle and Sacrey both lent her equipment.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be fair, I felt that Luna was really in it this year, and really wanted to stand on the podium,\u201d Sacrey said. \u201cThat\u2019s the vibe I got from when we were at territorials, just watching her new level of work I felt she was really in it to do amazing work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Photography will be a major part of Langlois\u2019 life going forward. She\u2019s majoring in journalism and communications at Holland College in P.E.I. She had applied (and been accepted) into photography as well, but chose the former, so she can reach another goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince I was a kid what I always wanted to do was travel around the world and share information.\u201d<\/p>\n
PHOTOS | Luna Langlois’ Skills Canada national competition portfolio:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luna Langlois says she\u2019s loved photography since she was young, and it\u2019s a passion that\u2019s grown into more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-721358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}