I attended this year’s Canon Photomarathon, their annual on-the-spot photo contest, thinking I’d get myself a free t-shirt. As it turned out, I got a whole lot more than what I wished for.

The annual Canon PhotoMarathon has always been the most anticipated event for every Canon user across the globe. Register online, sling your camera around your neck, be present at the day of the event and they’ll take care of the rest. Canon shirts and caps for free, your lunch and dinner on them, and a few more giveaways and discounts from the participating sponsors. What more can you ask right?

Well, you can always aspire for the top prize of course.

Everyone wanted to win the Canon 5D mkII camera that they’re giving away to the top photographer of the day. But not me, I’ve set my goal on winning the Canon 1000D camera instead. Not really by choice, as only those competing using a Canon DSLR is entitled to win the mighty 5D. With no EOS DSLR, us lowly point and shooters must settle for the entry level Canon 1000D.

But who cares, right? I’m happy even with just the free shirt.

The contest goes like this; three themes were to be announced for a whole day of shooting. To complicate things, these were given in semi poetry-like tomes. You can just imagine us scratching our heads trying to decode it, let’s face it we’re no Robert Langdon, we would have preferred it if the theme was given as is; let landscapes be landscapes, not some four line rhyming poem. Well, I admit that it did add a bit more challenge to the contest.

The first theme, as far as I understand, was about landscapes. We were given two hours to take photos anywhere we like, we can even go as far as Palawan if we had a chopper, but we have to be back before the time ends, else it would be all for naught.
 
Since the venue was at SMX, I was rarin’ to go to Paranaque’s Coastal Road to photograph something I’ve been seeing along that stretch of highway when riding a bus to Las Pinas City.

The second theme is nature’s life cycle, I think. Off we went to Manila Zoo where everyone else was too.

The third theme totally got me stumped. After minutes of discussion and pondering with my shooting buddy, we concluded (hesitantly) that it was about portraiture . And we have that already covered from our first shoot, yey! That means we can finally have lunch as we skipped it to shoot the second theme. Rest time finally.
 
The event lasted the whole day, and it was really a circus, it was like The Amazing Race for photo junkies. I totally loved it.

Some singing, dancing and party contests were held while we waited for the judges to pick this year’s winner. We waited and waited, ‘til finally the three winners were announced for the EOS Category. Boohoo, no point and shoot category winner was announced.

But, I’m still cool, the day had been a blast. And besides the cool shirt and cap, I also got to bring home a Canon 70-200mm lens mug which was a surprise gift from Canon, a lenspen, an 8-gig Sandisk thumbdrive, a Lowepro camera pouch, an EOS Magazine, a bottle of alcohol, a pack of instant coffee and a whole lot of new friends. Pretty good deal right? Well, it was to become sweeter two weeks after the event.
An e-mail arrived from Canon; the photo I submitted for the landscape theme, stamped with a 1st Prize ribbon. Man, how sweet is that?

I came to the Canon Photomarathon, looking to score a free shirt, and through a whole day of fun shoot, bought home an additional DSLR camera to boot. Swashbucklingly sweet, I’d say. Thank you and ‘til next year Canon!