Marta Fiscus wins Pangea Prize

FOR THE TIMES-NEWS

CUMBERLAND — Cumberland native Marta Fiscus has been awarded a Pangea Prize from the Siena International Creative Photo Awards organization. Competing in the Nature & Landscape category, Fiscus won the runner-up prize for a macro photo titled “Riding on Marigold Waves.”

She traveled to Siena, Italy, in September to participate in the Siena Awards Festival, where she was delighted and surprised to learn of her achievement, she said.

“Winning the Pangea Prize has been on my life’s bucket list, so this has been an emotional journey paired with biggest milestone of my life,” she said. “The rare chance to become part of a community with extraordinary talent and vision is humbling and has been deeply inspiring for my own personal growth and future work.”

The Siena Awards is known for showcasing strong positive emotions, exploring different cultures, expressing avante-garde ideals and celebrating images that bring joy, unite and draw attention from diverse audiences across the globe. The Creative Photo Awards is a subsection of the Siena Awards organization, which seeks to recognize and celebrate photographic artists.

According to the Creative Photo Awards, winning an award through their organization is meant to uplift artists who produce photos born from passion, creativity and the desire to push the bounds of the photographic medium, resulting in the expression of feeling through images demonstrating the artist’s unique view of our surrounding reality.

Fiscus was awarded a statuette — a sphere of handblown glass encapsulating sheets of delicate silver, meant to symbolize captured light and described by the Siena Awards as “a metaphor of perfection, reflection, refraction, for optical lenses and imagination, the future and the world.” The sphere of light is mounted upon a pedestal inscribed with the word “Pangea” and depicts the continents of the world merged as one, representing the uniting message of all nations, cultures and people together.

Fiscus also participated in the “I Wonder If You Can” exhibition, where all award-winning images were displayed during the awards festival. The exhibition was displayed September through November 2025 at the Artistic High School “Duccio di Buoninsegna.” The group exhibition highlighted images that subverted viewer’s expectations, evoked deep emotions, explored the wonders of the world and challenged conventional assumptions of fine art photography.

Fiscus began her journey in photography during the social isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. She launched a native garden project in her backyard where she became interested in the tiniest of its inhabitants. Using a magnifying filter, she is able to explore a world that is vibrant and bustling, though often overlooked. Her artistic practice focuses on the life cycles of plants and insects at her “Living Studio” and, through her work, she has documented over 500 species of flora and fauna.

“Riding on Marigold Waves” is described by Fiscus as “A tiny crab spider settles into the curve of an African marigold petal, as if floating on rhythmic ocean waves, waiting for the catch of the day. (I) used a 60mm super macro lens with a wide aperture to highlight specific details while achieving a smooth bokeh in the layers of petals.”

Marta Fiscus displays her Pangea Prize from the Siena International Creative Photo Awards organization.

Submitted photo