Take photos of S'pore on Instagram in NDP contest

Hanging the national flag outside your home is a common way of showing your love for Singapore on National Day.

Now, because we haveone of the highest mobile phone penetration rates in the world, there is another way to celebrate Singapore's 47th birthday - Instagram.

Instagram is a free photo-sharing programme that allows users to take a photo, edit it and then share it on social networking services.

The National Day Parade (NDP) 2012 committee has been running a competition using the app to get you all fired up for Singapore's 47th birthday.

So just whip out your iPhone or Android mobile phone and snap things you love about Singapore.

Then publish them online using the app.

Do this and you stand to win NDP preview tickets.

Organised by the NDP committee and Singapore Instagram (SGIG), the InstagramSG competition began on March 24 and will end on July 29.

Lieutenant-Colonel Ng Sin Ain, 43, the NDP committee's chairman for branding and publicity, hopes that Singaporeans will use this platform to express and share their love for their country.

He said: "We carry mobile phones with us all the time, so snapping photos can be a very spontaneous action.

"Through Instagram, people can capture on lens the many personal things which they love about Singapore."

Five themes

There are five different themes, with each theme running for two weeks.

Participants can shoot photos according to the theme and caption them with the hashtag #sgigNDPfav plus the theme (for example, #sgigNDPfavPASTIME) to submit their photos.

The first two themes, My Favourite Spot At Home and My Favourite Pastime, which were publicised solely on social media platforms, saw a total of 844 entries.

The third round starts around mid-May, and Mr Ivan Kuek, 35, of SGIG, is confident that more Singaporeans will participate.

He said: "The next theme is on people that matter to you, so we're hoping to see something more emotive and personal."

For each round, the top two entries will each win a pair of NDP Preview tickets. The winner of each round will also win a Huawei computer tablet and the runner-up will win a Huawei mobile phone.

Other prizes include MP4/MP3 players, movie vouchers, NDP goodie bags and $100 shopping vouchers.

The top entries will be displayed at an Instagram exhibition during the NDP roadshows in June and July.

The contest is something housewife Vanessa Chan, 43, is very excited about. Ms Chan was the winner of the first round, My Favourite Spot At Home.

Her photo, Starry Grilles, was taken in August in her home in Geylang Serai. She has been living there since she was six years old.

She said: "These are the original grilles that my grandfather had when this house was built back in 1956."

This article was first published in The New Paper.