WASILLA -- For its first adventure in image-making, the Mat-Su Borough Assembly picked a sure thing for a commemorative poster: a color-saturated picture of Palmer Hay Flats State Game Refuge stretching out before Pioneer Peak, shot by professional photographer Fred Hirschmann.

"People are not going to believe that photo wasn't enhanced," Assemblywoman Michelle Church said while a group of Palmer Hay Flats supporters and patrons of the Pandemonium Bookstore in Wasilla admired the poster.

Hirschmann, who shoots exclusively with film, said he used a 4-by-5-inch camera, the same type favored by iconic photographer Ansel Adams. He shot "right in the Knik River area, in one of the sloughs that heads up toward Pioneer Peak."

He captured the picture on an early summer evening. Light was low, and long exposures meant a lot of photos where the cotton grass in the forefront was blurry. But the world stilled long enough for him to get a clear shot.

The commemorative posters are the brainchild of Big Lake Assemblywoman Cindy Bettine. Earlier this year, she said she visited the offices of state legislators in Juneau. Legislators from other areas had pictures of projects important in their districts, she said. Mat-Su legislators had none.

So Bettine proposed the borough produce an annual picture or poster depicting a project important in Mat-Su. State and federal legislators will get copies, and the borough can sell prints to pay for next year's poster, hopefully making the project self-sustaining. The Assembly agreed unanimously.

"It's sort of along the lines of the Alaska Railroad posters and Iditarod posters," Church said.

Hirschmann, whose northern lights photograph was picked in 2007 for a U.S. Postal Service stamp celebrating the International Polar Year, offered the Hay Flats photo for the inaugural Mat-Su Borough poster.

His photos grace the Alaskans for Palmer Hay Flats Web site, www.palmerhayflats.org, and he said he appreciates the beauty of the refuge.

"It's so close to all of us, yet wherever you go, there are gems like this out there," he said.

The state and other landowners, along with the Hay Flats group, have devoted countless hours and a lot of money to cleaning up an area that used to attract shooters and trash-dumpers. Now Alaskans for Palmer Hay Flats holds bi-annual family fun days to celebrate the refuge's legal activities, like canoeing, fishing, hiking, birding and ice-skating. The group also offers educational programs for children and adults at the refuge, Hay Flats president Kris Abshire said.

The Mat-Su Assembly has asked state and federal legislators for money for a science and community center south of Wasilla.

They haven't attached a price tag, but Abshire said recently that a rough estimate puts the cost at $6.3 million.

"What we envision here would be kind of a combination of the Campbell Creek Science Center in Anchorage, the Eagle River Nature Center and Creamer's Field (in Fairbanks)," she said.

Hirschmann was chosen as the first artist on the first poster. But from here on out, artists will compete, Church said.

Borough spokeswoman Patty Sullivan said a panel of borough judges will pick a subject next month and invite artists to submit photos or artwork depicting the chosen subject. Because the idea is to highlight projects the borough is seeking funding for, the subject list is likely to include Hatcher Pass, Port MacKenzie and other big borough plans. The winner gets $1,000.

The deadline for submissions is Dec. 31, she said.

Find out more about the contest at the borough Web site, www.matsugov.us, under "Newsroom."

Sullivan said the posters will soon be available for sale for $20 from the borough Web site. Until then, find them at the Mat-Su Convention and Visitors Bureau or at local framing and art stores.