Shoot the moon and win cash at PAGASA’s mobile photo tilt

BY ELLALYN DE VERA-RUIZ

If you are a photography and astronomy enthusiast, then be ready with your mobile phones.

That’s because you have a chance to win as much as P10,000 if you can take a photo of the most striking moon silhouette during the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration’s (PAGASA) celebration of the 28th National Astronomy Week (NAW) from Feb. 15 ton 17, 2021.

Dubbed as the “Mobile Phone Moon Silhouette Photography Contest,” the competition is open to the general public except for PAGASA employees and their immediate relatives.

To join, a participant must submit a photo of the moon silhouette taken in the Philippines using only a mobile phone from Feb. 15 to 17, 2021.

PAGASA said the photo must not contain any copyrighted material, including artworks and other photo, date stamps, watermarks, or any text on the image. 

Photo manipulation is also not allowed as post-processing of the image is limited to cropping and color enhancement, including shadow and highlights only.

The submission of entries will be opened on Feb. 18, 2021 at 9 a.m. PAGASA said only one entry per person is allowed and the first 50 entries will be considered.

“To preserve the quality of entries, participants must provide the shareable Google Drive link of their respective entries enclosed in a single folder titled NAW2021_<Surname_First_Name>. Please ensure that the privacy of the respective entry must be set to ‘anyone with the link,'” PAGASA explained.

Participants are also asked to submit a copy of the unedited and processed images both in .jpg format with the following format; unedited image: NAW2021Raw_<Surname_First_Name>.jpg, and processed image: NAW2021Processed_<Surname_First_Name>.jpg.

The state weather bureau said the entries will be judged according to presentation/originality (40 percent), technique/creativity (30 percent), and composition (30 percent).

The first prize winner will be bringing home P10,000, second prize with P7,000, and third prize with P5,000. Five entries may also receive consolation prizes worth P1,000 each.

The announcement of winners will be posted on Feb. 26, 2021 via PAGASA’s Official Facebook Page. 

The NAW is an annual event observed every third week of February. For this year, the occasion will be celebrated from Feb. 14 to Feb. 20, with the theme “Innovations and Development of Philippine Astronomy Under the New Normal.” (Ellalyn de Vera-Ruiz)