“Photographynot only demonstrates the beauty of Taichung City but also distributes happiness to every corner in a more cost-effective manner!” The “Lantern Festival Photography Contest” was held at the same time as the sensational Lantern Festival Fair in the Middle of Taiwan. After evaluating and pondering carefully, judges finally announced the final results a few days ago. The first three winners are Yi-Fu Xu for “Lucky Mouse Year”, Wei-Hong Chen for “2008 Dual Mickey Mouse Lantern Beauty of Taichung City”, and Ya-Hui Lai for “Share of Love Words”. This afternoon (1st), the vice mayor, Jia-Qi Xiao, presided over the award ceremony and formally congratulated and awarded all winners.

Mr. Vice Mayor Xiao pointed out that the Lantern Festival in the Middle of Taiwan has not only become an important activity for all of Taiwan, but the Lantern Photography Contest has also become a great event in Taichung City. He was very glad that more and more experts participated in the contest, which not only fully showed the beauty of Taichung City, but also brought the happiness of the Lantern Festival to every place. He would like to thank every participant; everyone’s efforts enabled the beauty to be handed down in posterity, forever,

The chief of Information Division in the municipal government, Mr. Yong-Feng Chen, pointed out that, with the expansion scale of the Lantern Fair in the Middle of Taiwan, year by year more and more entrants have taken part in the festival photography contest. The municipal government received a total of more than 400 works this year. Each one was so excellent that judges felt it was hard to evaluate and spent quite a long time drawing up the rank. But as one of judges, he must say that all works were very outstanding; each demonstrated the vitality, harmony and happiness of Taichung City with different angles. These made it difficult for judges to decide, and therefore, entrants should not feel discouraged if they did not receive an award this time. Additionally, Taichung government held another photography contest “One Day in Taichung City” in hopes that all good hands can participate.

He said that first place goes to Yi-Fu Xu’s work “Lucky Mouse Year”. The judges thought that the author’s work showed the interaction between people and the main lantern in Satisfactory Square well, with great color saturation, picture composition, and shutter grasp, which demonstrated high prosperity.

Second place goes to Wei-Hong Chen’s work, “2008 Dual Mickey Mouse Lantern Beauty of Taichung City”. The author overlooked the lantern fair scene from an overpass; the theme was quite clear. Interestingly long-time exposure for nearby streets and crowds created a happy image in the city, showing the author’s effort.

Third place goes to Ya-Hui Lai’s work, “Share of Love Words”. The author chose the representative scene in Taichung, the old building of Mid-Lake Pavilion. Using the scene of lovers’ celebrating happy Lantern Festival or taking a rest by pleasure boats together demonstrated the happy atmosphere in human world.

Mr. Yong-Feng Chen expressed that the top three authors can respectively receive a bonus of NT$10,000, 8,000 and 5,000 and a certificate of merit. Additionally, there were ten fine pieces chosen for a bonus of NT$3,000 and a certificate of merit. All award-winning works will be exhibited in the corridor of the first floor of Taichung municipal government starting today. Come visit!