A graduate student has been nominated for Canada’s biggest photography prize.

Elaine Stocki GRD ’09 and three other photographers were shortlisted by a jury of four international experts in photography as candidates for the Grange Prize, which carries $50,000 in prize money. Two nominees were chosen from Canada and two from the country co-sponsoring the prize this year, India. Stocki is a native of Winnipeg.

Stocki’s photographs feature an element of voyeurism – some show intense, private emotions while others have a more playful feel, as though she’s caught her subjects off-guard.

Stocki said that her main goal was to obscure her own identity in her photographs, in a video interview conducted by the Art Gallery of Ontario.

“My work is driven by class issues, by race issues, by gender issues,” Stocki said in the interview.

When asked how she found subjects to photograph in an interview, Stocki said she often posted ads on Craigslist.

The winner will be determined by a public vote; it is Canada’s only major public-voted art prize. Click here to reach the voting page.