Marking the successful conclusion of Your Canon Event, an experiential maker festival that brought together over 1,500 attendees to Urban Park @ Gucco Tower, followed by the weekend festival celebrating a special milestone, the 20th edition Canon PhotoMarathon 2026, with its photography competition and inaugural video storytelling competition. This was also special for me as my TGH Photography and Travel 20 years also coincides with 20th edition Canon PhotoMarathon 2026!
Your Canon Event and 20th Edition Canon PhotoMarathon 2026
Your Canon Event, an experimental maker festival, has hands-on workshops, experiential play zone, and community-led activities spanning hobbies such as a botany, tabletop gaming and miniature model painting.
Photo courtesy of Canon Singapore
“With ‘Your Canon Event’, we set out to redefine what a modern maker festival could look like, and reflect how creators engage with imaging today,” said Too Kok Yong, Head of Singapore Operations Group, Canon Singapore. “We seek to create a collaborative space where Singapore’s vibrant creator communities could celebrate their distinct passions and engage in visual storytelling, in the spirit of kyosei—living and working together for the common good. Seeing so many creators connect these diverse hobbies with our PowerShot V Series and EOS V Series, alongside the incredible milestones of our 20th Canon PhotoMarathon, underscores our commitment to empowering creators at every stage of their journey.”
At Your Canon Event, the festival programme consisted of hands-on stations, from postcard making Play Lab to craft stations, designed to show how imaging technology fits into everyday creative hobbies. Attendees also got the opportunity to experience first hand with Canon’s compact and agile EOS/PowerShot V series cameras that seamlessly integrates into specialised lifestyle workflows.
Canon PhotoMarathon 2026 – Photography Category
Here are the three themes for the photography category at Canon PhotoMarathon 2026. Just for fun, sharing what I shot and submitted during the competition.
Theme 1: Vibrant
Theme 2: Value
Theme 3: Voice
Of course, I took a few different photos of each theme before deciding which photo to submit for the competition.
Canon PhotoMarathon 2026 – Video Category
A brand new segment, the inaugural video category, the video storytelling competition that adds a new dimension to Canon PhotoMarathon in its landmark 20th edition in 2026. Considering how the media landscape and media consumption has changed so much over the past decade, video visual storytelling has become a common feature of people’s life, daily living, work and content creation.
Have a look at Canon PhotoMarathon 2026 – Video Competition Winners on YouTube!
Youth Category
There was an amazing turnout in the Youth Category, specially designated for creators aged 25 years and below, a standout highlight for this 20th milestone edition. This category showcased a rising wave of Gen Z and younger talent bringing fresh perspectives to the competition’s themes – including the dedicated video category on Kyosei, that challenge participants to capture stories of community, sustainability, and integrity that defines today’s youth.
Giving Back to Society
APSN, a social service agency that supports individuals with mild intellectual disability, has a long-standing partnership with Canon Singapore that dates back to 2006. They returned to participate in Canon PhotoMarathon 2026.
This partnership includes specially designed workshops to sharpen APSN students’ technical skills, loan of cameras and organising guided photo outings led by Canon Singapore staff volunteers.
This continued participation reflects Canon Singapore and APSN shared commitment to make photography more accessible and creating opportunities for youths with mild intellectual disability to express their creativity.
Over my 12 years (including 2026 edition) of Canon PhotoMarathon participation, I have seen APSN participating and being a part of this photography competition. Their participation may not be as well known to the public or Canon PhotoMarathon attendees. However, I feel they deserve more mention and recognition on Canon Singapore giving back to society with APSN, using photography and visual storytelling as a medium and platform to tell their stories.
For more information on Canon PhotoMarathon 2026 event highlights, and winning submissions, please visit Canon PhotoMarathon 2026 | Canon Singapore.
Reflecting My 12th Year in Canon PhotoMarathon
In this special 20 years milestone year 2026 celebrating my TGH Photography and Travel portal/blog, as well as 20th edition of Canon PhotoMarathon, it was also my 12th year participating in Canon PhotoMarathon in 2026. Here are my (pretty lengthy) personal thoughts and feelings from my 12th year participating in Canon PhotoMarathon.
First and foremost, going to take a quick time machine trip back in time, I didn’t join Canon PhotoMarathon when they first started in 2003, my maiden Canon PhotoMarathon participation was in 2008, followed by 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2024, 2025 and 2026.
12 years and counting, I have experienced and seen for myself how this photography competition has changed over the decades from local Singapore market to other ASEAN countries, from camera technology to connectivity with apps and devices. The outreach and approach has also changed along with how the media landscape, social media/internet and technology evolved over the decades.
However, the core spirit remains the same, the love and fun for photography, in a short and fast paced timeline constraints powered by three different photography themes, pushing our creativity and photography planning to its limits.
I didn’t win any prize in my 12 years of participation, it’s alright though, even though I would love to win some prizes! Instead, I gained intangible and priceless stuff, such as the many friendships over the years with different groups of photography friends, such as my own photography kakis in the early blogging days, former EOS World Community Ambassadors group that I was part of, the Instagram community and other photographer friends met along the way (it’s like an annual event to meet and catch up. Maybe I should take selfies for memories sake). This 20th edition year was a great catch up with some of Canon Singapore folks that I haven’t met for a while, and also PhotoSphere SG, one of the sponsors for Canon PhotoMarathon.
Even though it’s my 12th year participating, this marks one of my visual storytelling adventures highlight in my TGH Photography and Travel 20 years milestone celebrations/achievements, together with the milestone 20th edition Canon PhotoMarathon in 2026.