cizucu Presents “Komorebi” | Challenge #400

“Komorebi” is a global online photography contest presented by cizucu and open to all creators registered with cizucu. By curating outstanding works from the submissions, the contest seeks to discover emerging talent through the platform and support it through the community.

This edition’s theme is komorebi—sunlight filtering through leaves.

“Komorebi” is a Japanese word describing sunlight as it streams through gaps in the foliage, tracing patterns of light and shadow across the ground, walls, or someone’s skin. It shifts with every breath of wind, never assuming the same form twice.
As we contemplate this light, the contours of familiar landscapes can begin to dissolve, overlapping with delicate reveries or distant memories we had forgotten.

Light spilling through leaves, shadows swaying in the breeze, patterns cast across buildings, or a figure standing within the glow—we look forward to seeing the fleeting reveries you discover in komorebi.

Anamika
When you start noticing beautiful things around you, everything you see starts to become beautiful.

cizucu Editorial Team
It feels as though we are witnessing komorebi at the moment of its birth from within the trees, just before it reaches the earth. At the heart of the interwoven branches and foliage, the sun shines like the nucleus of a living organism, while its pale blue light seems to expand outward as the breath of the grove.

Aritaka

cizucu Editorial Team
The contrast between light and shadow seems to bring different temporalities together within this place. Emerging from the forest’s darkness, the patch of grass appears chosen by the sunlight and opens toward a distant season; beyond the white trunk, another world seems to continue. It is a scene that makes us want to cross that threshold.

Kei
Fresh greenery.

📷 OLYMPUS PEN E-PL8

cizucu Editorial Team
In the light falling across a box in the garden, we can discern traces of a life long sustained in this place. Amid the blue shed, potted plants, and flourishing vegetation, human activity intersects with natural growth, while leafy shadows inscribe that relationship upon the wall. The scene invites us to imagine the afternoon of someone who remains out of sight.

Yuya

📷 FUJIFILM GFX 50R

cizucu Editorial Team
The circle created by the lens flare resembles an unknown celestial body appearing amid the grass. Droplets resting on slender blades become glimmering stars, connecting the small world beneath our feet with the far reaches of the cosmos. This work suggests that photographing komorebi can also be an act of gathering up formless light itself.

yNAK
Evergreen forest

📷 Noritsu Koki QSS-32_33

cizucu Editorial Team
Rather than illuminating a path forward, this komorebi may be offering a reason to pause. The figure within the light appears to contemplate both the landscape before them and their own inner world. Drawn in by this moment of silence along the way, I too wanted to stop among these trees and gaze into the light.

【Submission Period】
Saturday, August 15–Monday, September 14, 2026

【Award Announcement】
Thursday, September 24, 2026

【Prize】
Complimentary admission to the Photo Poster Project presented by cizucu (two recipients)

【How to Submit】
・Select the “Komorebi” contest
・Tap “Agree to the Submission Guidelines and Post”
・Select the content you wish to post and submit your work

【Jury Criteria】
(1) Relevance to the theme: Does the work respond to the stated mission?
(2) Clarity of subject: Is the photographer’s intention—and what the work seeks to communicate—clearly conveyed?
(3) Expressive quality: Does the work demonstrate strength in perspective, composition, balance, focus, color, and other formal elements?
(4) Decisive moment: Does the work successfully capture the right moment and timing in relation to its subject?
(5) Originality: Does the work demonstrate a distinctive approach to its setting, subject matter, or other elements?