Marina Shum (Maryna Shum Photography)

Maryna Shum is an event and portrait photographer in Ottawa. Before the war she lived in Kyiv, in an apartment where she liked watching the sunset over the Dnipro River, and she worked as a tour guide for Ukrainians travelling overseas — a job that took her abroad regularly. She came to Canada in April 2022 with her daughter, her mother and their dog.

In Ottawa she began working with a settlement agency, helping other Ukrainian newcomers work through the paperwork that a new country brings. She still volunteers for her community. The Canadian Press, which interviewed her in April 2026, describes her as an event and portrait photographer.

The credit line "Maryna Shum Photography" is on the public record in two places. UAFest's own gallery and press pages credit the festival's 2025 photographs to Maryna Shum — the 2025 festival was held on 13 September at Riverside Park on Lake Ave W in Carleton Place. On 24 August 2026 she photographed the Ukrainian flag raising at Ottawa City Hall marking the 35th anniversary of Ukraine's independence, and the Embassy of Poland in Canada published the pictures with the line "Ottawa 📸 by Maryna Shum Photography."

She also turns up on the other side of the lens. At the Ukrainian Canadian Congress rally on Parliament Hill on 22 February 2026 she carried a large makeshift helmet — two days of work, a balloon and a roll of duct tape — copying the one Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified for wearing in memory of athletes and coaches killed in the war. "It's about honour. It's about courage," she told The Canadian Press. Senator Rebecca Patterson called the helmet a "vital message of truth."

She posts on Instagram as @shummarina, under a Ukrainian flag and one line that covers most of it: "My 🤍 is Travel&Photo."