I was delighted to receive so many entries for the photo contest again this year.
I am grateful for the opportunity to have been impressed and entertained while judging everyone's hard work. Among them, the three works selected for the Grand Prize and Runner-ups were outstanding masterpieces.

However, one thing that concerned me was that, despite increasing the number of designated sites each time, the subjects tended to be concentrated in places or on objects that are relatively easy to photograph and can be turned into a certain level of work. Moreover, many of the scenes were similar. I felt that I wanted to see more effort in stepping forward, finding the goodness of a Hokkaido Heritage site that catches your eye, and moving the viewer.

Also, this time, there was a noticeable number of entries taken with smartphones. I was particularly surprised to see about 20 entries of almost identical images from the same location. I believe one should submit a shot that they have personally selected. The ability to select is also important. As we anticipate an increase in smartphone entries in the future, I kindly ask for your consideration in this matter.

Having read many tanka poems related to Hokkaido Heritage this time, I felt that the excellent works were all those that did not remain within the confines of a tourist's perspective. They did not treat Hokkaido Heritage or its landscapes as stimuli unrelated to their own daily lives. They perceived them as part of their own living world and sought a sincere dialogue. I made a conscious effort to positively evaluate works with such a tendency.

I am very fond of the works of a haiku poet named Mantaro Kubota, who depicted the disappearing downtown atmosphere of Tokyo. Mantaro did not write those works with the intention of turning the downtown area into a tourist resource. He simply had landscapes he dearly loved, and in his desire to seal them within words, tourist value was eventually added to the downtown atmosphere. For the Hokkaido Heritage tanka poems this time, I first chose those that conveyed a devoted love for the scenery.

What happens with tourism is something that comes later. Tanka is the simplest form of conversational drama, and sometimes, conversations with non-human things are depicted.

When you think of it that way, don't you find tanka quite interesting and simple?