The contest challenged this photo-enthusiast community to capture the essence of the number “8” in a photo since this is the year of the “8” (we had 8-8-8 last August 8, 2008).  In their own words, “the number 8 is considered a perfectly balanced symbol.  When laid sideways, it turns into the infinity sign.  Its meaning to different cultures is just that—infinite. It can represent prosperity or wealth, but some also perceive it as an unlucky number.  It means resurrection for others and destruction for some.  Eight represents enlightenment, perfection, a day of rest or rock-and-rollin’ love.”

Fifty-two of their community members submitted photos and three of them were proclaimed winners.  Here are the winning photos:

1st Place

Photo by jobarracuda

2nd Place

Photo by angrylittleboy

3rd Place

Photo by tacit requiem

Congratulations to the winners for your stunning entries and to the group, for your support and cooperation to make the event a success!  Special thanks go to the sponsors whose contributions have made the event even more memorable and spectacular!  To TriNoma Mall of the Ayala Malls for providing the excellent venue, to Digiprint for printing the awesome photos, and to Toshiba for giving the really cool prizes to our winners.  The first placer got a laptop, the second place an 8MP digital camera, and the third placer received an MP3 player.  It couldn’t get any better than that!  Keep it up Flickristas, and more power to your community!

Photo by Stitch

As many of you may know already, Flickr is an image and video hosting website and online community platform that many use as a means to share personal photographs and also as a repository for blogs and websites.  It has more than 2 billions images already and continuously growing.  Almost all of the photos I use in the blog are from Flickr and I’m so proud to say that a lot of our fellow Pinoys are some of the best contributors of Flickr.

Photo by frozenjester™

Right now, Flickr’s largest group in the Philippines, the Flickristas, are running an online photo contest entitled “Flickrista 888: A Celebration of Life”, where photo hobbyists and professionals are challenged to explore the infinite meaning of the number 8 and capture it in a photo.  Why the number 8?  Well, this is the year of the Eight (we had 8-8-8 last August 8, 2008) and this number is considered a lucky number in Chinese culture because it sounds like the word “prosper” or “wealth”.

Photo by tacit requiem

What you see here are some of the entries but you can see all of it here – http://www.flickr.com/groups/pilipinas/discuss/72157606592922183/.  The event will culminate in a photo exhibit this coming October in one of the newest and coolest malls in Metro Manila and will showcase the photos that captured the essence of the number 8 and reward the winning entries.

Photo by imohthep

I’ll be updating everyone on the details of this upcoming event.  Also, the contest isn’t done yet so if you wish to join and be part of this celebration of life through photography, there’s still some time.  Just sign up for a Flickr account (you can easily do so with you Yahoo! account) and join the Flickrista group.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a professional photographer or a newbie who just got bitten by the photography bug, the important thing is if you have creatively taken a photo that captures the essence of the number Eight.  Check out the links and join now!