It came for us in a billion tiny pieces on dark nights, sculpting a thick icing on branches and laying alabaster blankets over cars and rooftops.

We moved it in heaps and we slept as it kept falling.

We rejoiced in it. We took to the hills and to open fields to watch it explode around us into clouds of shattered diamonds. The ghost-like fingers of winter chased us through the deep snow, a woosh against our pants and coats.

This winter exists in our hearts certainly and minds, yes. But Mountainfilm — that marvelous little film festival that paints the town in prayer flags every spring — wants to make sure it lingers a bit longer. That’s why the festival needs you.

“You,” in this instance, is anyone who took a decent shot of winter in all its glory or misery. Skiing or hiking or driving or sitting drinking coffee or shoveling. If it has snow, if it’s a glimpse into what this winter’s meant to us all, then there’s a good chance Mountainfilm will include it in a photography exhibit during the festival over Memorial Day weekend.

“[We’ve had] this epic snow year,” said David Holbrooke, Mountainfilm’s new director. “I just felt like it would be fun to chronicle it.”

Submissions can be sent to Mountainfilm Gallery Artist Coordinator Amy Schilling at gallerycurator@mountainfilm.org.

Holbrooke says to send images via e-mail before printing and framing your work. That way, should Mountainfilm deny the submission, no one’s out a bunch of cash for work that won’t be shown as part of the exhibit.

Holbrooke says he might have come up with the idea himself, though it’s hard to tell sometimes in the Mountainfilm office.

“I want to reach out,” he says. “I want local photographers and artists to feel like they’re a part of this festival.”

He hopes the public comes out to support the photographers, too. Winter makes money for everyone in this town, why not the photographers?

“I hope the public comes out to buy it,” he says. “We all want a memory, I hope, of this winter. And these photographers should be able to capture that.”

The exhibit marks one of a handful of events that cater to locals more than in years past. There will be a series of green initiatives for local merchants, a talk about water issues in the Southwest and a tribute to local photographer and legend T.R. Youngstrom, who died in a 1997 helicopter crash in Chile. He was a skier, pilot and traveler.

“We’ve had such an unusual year,” Holbrooke says. “It seems like we should celebrate that.”