{"id":215657,"date":"2015-12-01T04:00:40","date_gmt":"2015-11-30T18:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=215657"},"modified":"2015-12-01T04:00:40","modified_gmt":"2015-11-30T18:00:40","slug":"ivan-blanco-wins-bsis-open-photography-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/ivan-blanco-wins-bsis-open-photography-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivan Blanco wins BSI\u2019s open photography contest"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The panel of judges are, from left, Best Sunshine International, Ltd. general counsel Alan Chan, Minda Castro of Beach Road Magazine\/Glimpses of Guam, Mark Rabago of Saipan Tribune, BSI chief executive officer Mark A. Brown, Laila Younis Boyer of Marianas Variety, and BSI chief services officer Tao Xing. The entries were judged last Oct. 21. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Winners of Best Sunshine International Ltd.\u2019s photography contest last month will be presented with their awards today. The open photography contest garnered about 200 entries in just the week that it ran.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are humbled by the community\u2019s overwhelming response to our photography contest.\u00a0 With so many good-quality entries received, Best Sunshine had difficulty winnowing down the entries,\u201d chief services officer Tao Xing said.<\/p>\n

The first place winner is Ivan Blanco with his entry titled \u201cMakeshift Playground.\u201d It features a 5-year-old girl surveying the ocean\u2014her \u201cplayground\u201d\u2014from a makeshift cover built from damaged pine tree branches.<\/p>\n

Jack Stewart\u2019s Simba, which means to go to Mass in Tagalog, won second place. It shows a young boy holding on to his mother as they line up for hot meals provided by Kagman Community Church as part of the relief efforts after Typhoon Soudelor.<\/p>\n

Third place went to Fredereic Guintu and Macy Manzanares for their entries, \u201cSchool 101\u201d and \u201cHealing Saipan.\u201d<\/p>\n

The top 14 photographs will be exhibited at the casino during today\u2019s awarding rites.<\/p>\n

Winners will take home $2,000, $1,000, and $500 for the first, second, and third places, respectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese photographs show us how the members of the community struggled during Typhoon Soudelor and how we coped in its aftermath,\u201d Xing said. \u201cEach photo tells a story. Each photo is a memory. Each photo memorializes the people\u2019s resiliency. Each photo is a testament to the people\u2019s will to survive. Truly, the photography is an ode to the triumph of the human spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ten others\u2014Kevin Ada, Tony Peters, Aysem Bray, Nessea Cruz, Ponce Corotan, Josephine Togawa, Geri dela Cruz, Mary Ann Lagmay, Andrey Zerkov, and Selmalyn Taitano\u2014will get $100 each as consolation prizes.<\/p>\n

The entries were judged last Oct. 21 by BSI chief executive officer Mark Brown, Xing, BSI general counsel Alan Chan, Laila Younis Boyer of Marianas Variety, Minda Castro of Beach Road Magazine\/Glimpses of Guam, and Mark Rabago of Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis early, we are making preparations as to how we are going to share the winning entries with the public so we may encourage not only creativity, but also recognize heroism,\u201d Xing said. \u201cWe look forward to the next iteration of this photography contest. We thank all that participated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winners of Best Sunshine International Ltd.\u2019s photography contest last month will be presented with their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8434,1311,3877,6333],"class_list":["post-215657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-alan-chan","tag-bsi","tag-marianas-variety","tag-typhoon-soudelor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}