cizucu Presents “Saved & Lost”: Winners Announced | Challenge #426

Saved & Lost is a global online photo contest organized by cizucu and open to every creator registered on cizucu. By highlighting outstanding entries, the contest aims to discover new talent through the platform and support creators as a community.

This edition’s theme was “Saved and Lost.”

A photo taken casually can become a treasured record over time. At the same time, we may remember a photo or moment we no longer have and think, “I wish I had taken a photo then,” or “I wish I hadn’t deleted it.”

We looked beyond technique and polish to the memories and words behind each image: why the photographer kept it, or why they wish they could have. We hope you can feel what each of these Saved and Lost photos means to the person behind it.
Now, let’s take a look at the entries and the winning photos.

mitsuru
Zhuazhou is a traditional ceremony celebrating a baby’s first birthday.
The custom dates back to the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties.
In ancient times, when medical care was limited and infant mortality was high,
it was an important celebration of a child reaching their first birthday safely.

cizucu editorial team
This photo captures a moment from a Zhuazhou first-birthday celebration. The smartphones pointed at the baby and the hands reaching in from all around show how happy everyone is to see the child grow. When the child looks back at this photo one day, how will they feel about a day they cannot remember? The photo preserves not only the celebration, but also the warmth of everyone watching over them.

Anamika
You know you are blessed when the spirits are there to guide you.
Grandmother’s watch. As old as myself.

📷 Apple iPhone 16

cizucu editorial team
This photo shows the photographer wearing their grandmother’s watch. The watch has been around for about as long as the photographer has. Something made to tell time can also make us feel close to someone we love.
Even if the hands of a treasured watch stop, it can still bring back the time spent together. It may hold memories that a photo alone could never fully convey.

김상원

cizucu editorial team
The photographer’s father stands in front of a fountain as a young man, with both hands on his hips. This slightly faded photo preserves a side of him that the photographer never knew.
As we approach the age our parents were in old photographs, the way we see those images begins to change. This photo makes us think about both what was preserved and what was not.

Yoshiki
Children in Betrawati, Nepal, where most of the village was swept away by flooding.

📷 FUJIFILM SP-3000

cizucu editorial team
A photo can take on a different meaning once we learn what happened in the place it shows. Reading that most of this village was swept away by flooding makes the children’s expressions—and even the time they spent there—feel all the more precious. An ordinary scene encountered while traveling may become something we can never return to as the world keeps changing.
There is only so much we can do. But we can still look back at the photo and remember the lives that were lived there.

kulwind
Nazca Lines...

📷 FUJIFILM GFX50S II

cizucu editorial team
This photo captures the Nazca Lines in the desert, with a road stretching straight into the distance beside them. Perhaps it was taken through an airplane window. There is something appealingly natural about the way it preserves a view glimpsed in passing. The vast landscape shows the scale of the journey, and looking back at the photo may bring back the surprise and excitement of that moment.

What did you think?
A photo can tell us more than what appears in the frame. It can also carry the words shared alongside it and our feelings about what was never photographed. We hope these Saved and Lost entries inspire you to look back through your own camera roll and memories.

Thank you to everyone who entered.
cizucu will continue to hold photo contests exploring a wide range of themes. We hope you’ll join us again next time.