The FREEMAN fotog bags second prize

CEBU, Philippines - A wedding photographer grabbed this year’s top prize in the Sinulog photo contest, the awarding ceremonies of which will be held today at the SM City cinema.

Mikhail Arrogante won grand prize topping other 1,300 photographers who joined in the different categories. He also won first prize in the contingent category and landed first, second, and sixth in the fluvial and procession category.

He placed second in the higante/puppeteer/float category and fourth and fifth in the sidelights/route décor/on site décor category.

The FREEMAN photojournalist Aldo Nelbert Banaynal won the second grand prize through his photo of the Festival Queen from Abellana National School during the Sinulog sa Kabataan showdown.

Banaynal said that the picture was taken “at the spur of a moment” because he had only one shot of that angle in his camera. Worse, he used a third hand camera.

“I never expected or thought to win since I learned that there were more than 1,500 photographers who joined the contest and over 50 thousand entries for the judges to choose,” he said.

The winners, who will be treated to an Oscar-type awarding ceremonies at 1 p.m. today at the SM Cinema include Rolando Pascua who placed third in the grand prize category.

In the contingent category, the winners include Jean Paul Nochefranca, second and third; Jacob Maentz, fourth; Francis Dunque, fifth; Edgar Tan, seventh; Japoi Cequina, eighth; and Erwin Lim, ninth.

The winners in the fluvial/processional category are Glenn Camay, second; Joseph Carlo Gochangio, third; Vic Kintanar, fourth; Casilda de Larrazabal, fifth; Maxwell Joan Bongo, sixth; Poh Lim II, eighth and Erwin Lim, tenth.

Also included are of the higante/puppeteer/float category are Carlito Felicen, first; Dexter Bongo, third; Vicente Vosotros, fourth; Erwin Lim, fifth; Ernesto Sudario, sixth; Chilun Leung, seventh; Jowalyn Maris Real, eight; Lawrence tan, ninth; and Elizabeth Ybañez, tenth.

Sidelights/Route Décor/On Site Décor winners include Lemuel Leogene Reyes, first; Rod Jason Galgo, second; Dexter Maneja, third; Christopher Colinares, sixth; Elmer Philip Lim, seventh; Kim Bondoc, eighth; Erwin Lim, ninth; and Dan Douglas Ong, tenth.

The other winners of the festival queen category are Francis Duque, second; Rene Ybañez, third; Elmer Shane Lagumbay, fourth; Lawrence Tan, fifth and sixth; Chubby Atillo, seventh; Sheena May Bombarda, eighth; Manley Cardinez, ninth; and Anne Flores, tenth.

Today’s awarding will also recognize the winners of video documentary and short film.

The awards include best story, best director, best cinematography, best production design, best sound engineering & musical scoring, best editing, and best screenplay.

Best actor, best actress and best child performer will also be given

Ricky Ballesteros, executive director of Sinulog Foundation Inc., said that the awarding ceremony will follow Hollywood’s Oscar awards in recognizing brilliance of documentary and short film winners.

Local celebrities and Cebu’s top models will hand in the awards.

There will be two grand winners of video and short film and will receive P30, 000 each. Second and third prize winners will receive P20, 000.00 and P 10,000.00 each, respectively.

Five consolation winners will receive P1, 000.00 for each category.

The awards for photo contest according to categories include contingent, fluvial and solemn procession, float /higante and puppeteers, décor / arch and sidelights and festival queen.

The first prize winner will receive P 15,000.00 while the second prize winner gets P10, 000.00. Third fourth, and fifth winners will receive P5, 000.00, P3, 000.00, and P2, 000.00, respectively. The sixth to tenth winners will get P1, 000.00 each.

The grand prize winner for the over-all best photo will receive P50, 000.00. Second prize winner will receive P30, 000.00 while third prize winner will receive P20, 000.00.

Photo exhibits of the winning entries will be on display from February 1-10 in SM Mall. — Marjun A. Baguio/WAB   (FREEMAN NEWS)