Category: competition

The March Contest Begins

Jason6 Comments

With March now underway, and the February giveaway wrapped up (check my rare weekend posts making this announcement), I thought I’d take a moment and let the cat out of the bag.  This month it’s quite an exciting prize!  The winner is going to be awarded a 17″ Tether Table (a $200 retail value)!  As if that’s not enough, the folks over at Tether Tools have also generously have thrown in a Jerk Stopper tethering kit that prevents your cables from snagging.  If you want to know more about it right now, stop over to their website and check out the product line:  Tether Table Product Page

In the meantime, here’s the nitty gritty details for the contest:

  • The Number:  1 image per person
  • The Size:  Longest side must be between 600-800 pixels.
  • The window:  30 day window for capture date (nothing earlier than February of 2011
  • The theme is:  Flat
  • The deadline:  March 31st at midnight (my time)
  • The rest:  You can read more about it at the Contest Guidelines page and the Rules of Engagement

Good luck everyone, and here’s the link:  March Contest Giveaway

For the record, the Tether Table will be very slightly used, as you know a hardware review is likely forthcoming quite soon on this equipment…but then again, that’s something to look forward to, right?

As a final postscript today, a new poll is up on the sidebar, so if you don’t visit the archives much (maybe take some time soon – lots of good stuff there! 🙂 ), be sure to take a moment and sound off in the latest poll:

[poll id="17"]

Enter your email address: 

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February Winners – Everyone!

JasonLeave a comment

Given the rigors of the week, closing out the February contest was not high enough on my radar, but having stirred from the hydro-codone-induced sleep, I remembered that it’s time to close out February and begin March contests.  As you may recall, for February, a $50 discount card is being offered up to all participants in the February LDP Contest giveaway, so for those of you who participated and were patiently awaiting the discount code – it’s been published in the February contest thread.

And now – the moment you’ve all been waiting for:  the February co-winners, each of whom gets $150 in printing from NPL, the ones whose images were most compelling, the ones…all right already, they are:

Mason Long

Mason Long

Frank Sammut

Frank Sammut

You can find their respective Flickr streams of these and their other photo libraries here and here respectively!  Congrats to both of you and I’ve sent your names over to our contact with Nations Photo Lab so they can deliver the coupon codes for your prizes to you!  Thanks again to Nations Photo Lab for their generous donations for the month of February!  Be sure to tune in on Monday for the announcement of the March contest!

Love is All You Need

Jason5 Comments

As most of you know, we took December and January off for the holidays.  This hopefully gave everyone time to recharge, enjoy a little down time and just relax with family and friends for December and January.  Well, it’s February and we are back in full force with the first contest of 2011.  The sponsor for this month are the folks over at Nations Photo Lab.  They really have ramped things up a notch for the new year, because this not only marks the first contest of the new year, it’s also the first contest where we will have not one but two winners!

That’s right, two people will be announced the winners for the February contest and giveaway!  Each winner will receive a generous donation from Nations Photo Lab – a gift certificate worth $150 of free printing!  That’s right, $150 of free printing from Nations Photo Lab! This prize is available to anyone, regardless of whether you are a current NPL  customer or not.  The theme for February, as chosen by our always talented Sue from the Flickr group (due to her win during the non-award winning off month submission) is the applicable theme of Love!

A couple new wrinkles that are being thrown in this time for such a huge contest…first off, all previous winners are usually ineligible for consideration in the month immediately following their winning entry – we are starting with a new year, so it’s also a clean slate, so everyone is eligible!!!

The second wrinkle (and probably the most exciting), is that for February only – every entrant will receive a $50 gift card to Nations Photo Lab – just for participating! That’s right, all you have to do is submit a qualifying entry in the Flickr contest thread for February to win a $50 gift card for printing on any product of your choice at Nations Photo Lab! *   So, all that’s left to say are the criteria to qualify.  It’s super easy:

  • Make sure your image is theme-appropriate (and family friendly/work safe).
  • Make sure I am able to download your image from Flickr.  (See the explanation for how to make sure I can download it here.)
  • Each image considered must be in the contest thread.
  • Each person is entitled to submit one image for eligibility.  Multiple entries will not be considered.
  • Each image must conform to the standard guidelines in terms of dimensions (longest side must be no longer than 800 pixels or shorter than 600 pixels).
  • All images must be taken after January 1st, 2011!
  • Entrants retain full copyright and ownership of images, but allow me to display the image here on the website to display when winners are announced, and in the monthly newsletter.
  • Entries must be submitted no later than 11:59pm on Sunday, February 27th, 2011.
  • Last but not least, have fun with the images you capture!

Questions about the submission process should be addressed in either the Contest Overview Page or the Rules of Engagement Page.

Last but not least, you may be interested in how to get to, sign into and participate in the Flickr Contest thread!

Good luck to everyone and remember to have fun!

*ETA:  In the interests of full disclosure, the $50 certificate is for new customers, so if you are already an NPL customer, feel free to enter your images as well, but the goal here is to not only encourage people to take pictures, but to print them, and to consider Nations Photo Lab as your lab of choice.  I use NPL almost exclusively (except in rare cases where they don’t have what I need, like printing on aluminum) and highly recommend them.  Here is your chance to sign up for an account for free and get up to $50 worth of printing just for participating in the contest.

Over $2000 in prizes!

Jason4 Comments

With April in the books a new winner has been determined.  It was a really tough call as all the entries this month were deserving, and each could have easily been considered a winner given the theme, the composition, creativity, and treatment.  All in all, the cream really has risen to the top, and I am seeing some really impressive quality in the images this month.

Okay, enough dancing around the subject.  The winner is:

Bryan F

April Winner - Balance - Bryan F

Seriously, I don’t know if I can keep doing these contests, because every month the decision gets more and more difficult to make.  It was a real toss up, and the only reason this one topped the others is because of the sense of tension brought to the image as well.  I just kept coming back to it saying “Wow…”  So, congrats to Bryan F – he is officially now the first repeat winner on LDP, and also he marks the winner who took us over the threshold of $200o in giveaway prizes!  Pretty cool if you think about it – on many counts!

In new contest news – the May contest is now underway, and the theme this month is:

WIDE!

The reason?  Well, by now you should know that themes are typically based around some premise of the prize, and since the prize this month is the well-respected PTGui Panorama Software (thanks to the folks over at PTGui for their generous sponsorship).  Given the nature of the contest theme, there will be a slight variation this month:  images should be no wider than 1600pixels on the longest side.  The theme lends itself toward panorama shots, so it would be silly to restrict the dimensions to prevent any decent panos.  This will also be noted in the contest thread up on Flickr.  Get clicking and above all, have some fun!  Deadline is the last Friday in May (28th).

Oh, and in case you can’t keep that in mind – download a May Calendar (yup, they are back at least temporarily…more on that on tomorrows blog post).  For now, feel free to download your own desktop sized calendar from the links below:

May Calendar

For those interested in the technique, be sure to tune in tomorrow.  Otherwise, happy shooting, good luck in the May contest, and we’ll see you back here mañana!

P.S.  For vendors interested in sponsoring a contest or future giveaway, I am getting caught up now and ready to start scheduling giveaway content starting in August 2010.  For readers, if you know of any vendors that would be cool for prizes, by all means, let me know and I’ll see if I can’t get them on board!

Contest News and Announcements

Jason3 Comments

Congratulations and kudos go out to the winner for the February contest – the theme was Height and the winning image came from Sue90ca!  To see all the images submitted for February, check out the thread here with all the images.  Some really great ones were included, and as always, it was a tough decision.  Nevertheless, Sue90ca’s “Crayons” was selected as the winner.

Sue90ca's Crayons

You can see the rest of Sue’s portfolio on her Flickr stream here…

Before anyone asks, the March contest info is not up on FLickr yet, but I should have an announcement for that later on tonight.  I’ll give you a WILD hint though about the subject and the prize!  Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!

P.S.  Sue, if you could email me at jason <at> canonblogger <dot> com or message me on Flickr, I need to get in touch with you about the prize delivery for February…congrats again! 🙂

December Winner!

Jason4 Comments

The trumpets sound!  The chorus rings, and the internet shall stop and take notice!

Why you ask?  We have a winner for the December Giveaway!  I am happy to announce that the winner of the December Giveaway Bonanza is none other than:

Frank Sammut!

Frank’s shot of a childs hand, offering up a gift perfectly symbolized the concept of giving, and his blurred bokeh of the holiday theme in the background was just beautiful!  He’s got some great work on his Flickr page too, so stop by and check it out and tell him congrats!

December Giveaway Winner - Frank Sammut

Congratulations to Frank for winning the giveaway package!  Frank, if you could drop me an email:  jason <AT> canonblogger <DOT> com, I’ll get you all the information and relay you to the donors for the giveaway.  Thank you to everyone for participating, and especially to the sponsors, including:

  • David DuChemin (for a free copy of both Within the Frame, and VisionMongers)
  • MPIX (for a free 16×20 gallery wrap print of Frank’s choice)
  • RedRiver Papers (for the specialty paper bundle)
  • HDRsoft (for the license to a copy of Photomatix Pro)

It’s also time to anounce the theme for the January giveaway.  We’re going to move away from the seasonally tied themes, so people don’t feel restricted there as different areas are in different seasons.  Instead, we’ll be going with something that is going to inspire some dynamite entries for sure:  Circles

That’s right, we’re going with a shape!  It should be interesting to see what comes in.  As always the standard guidelines apply:

  1. Make sure your image is between 600-800px on the longest side.
  2. Try to keep things within the current month.  Archives are okay, but preference will be given to current photos
  3. Images should be family/work safe
  4. Should be posted to the Flickr thread for the current month contest
  5. Deadline for entries is Friday, Jan. 29th (again, 3 weeks)
  6. The folks at HDR Soft have been very generous and have offered up another copy of their Photomatix Pro bundle for the January winner – so if you are into the HDR craze, or are interested, there’s another chance to win your very own licensed copy!

The January Flickr thread is up, live and ready for entries, so get out and shoot!  Happy New Year and Happy Shooting!

P.S.  Can anyone tell me anything different about the site?  (For you feed readers, come on over and check things out – something is different! 🙂 )

Favorite Photos of 2009

Jason5 Comments

One of the resolutions I had wanted to do was publish a “Best of” series from the Flickr group each month.  That did not come to pass, but I did want to take some time to share some of my favorites of the past year with you here. Not much to say in the way of prefacing these, other than to say that I liked them.  Whether for the technical quality, the compositional quality, the message, the colors, or the perspective – they stood out for me.  Feel free to visit the Flickr group pool and peruse for your own favorites, but here’s mine:

My favorites from 2009

My favorites from 2009

My favorites from 2009

My favorites from 2009

My favorites from 2009

My favorites from 2009

My favorites from 2009

My favorites from 2009

My favorites from 2009

My favorites from 2009

Thanks to everyone who continues to share their photos in the Flickr Community.  I will try my best to get some “favorites” put out monthly from this group, as that is one of many New Years Resolutions I am going to try to commit myself to for 2010.   Some are personal, some are inspired by others.  I’ll likely share more of these commitments going forward as well.  Do you have any resolutions for the 2010 calendar year?  Sound off in the comments!

Finally, stay tuned for the December Giveaway Winner which will be announced later this week too!  Tomorrow, be sure to stop back for more top picks from 2009.  Happy shooting and we’ll see you then! 🙂

37 out of 52

JasonLeave a comment

Can anyone guess the significance of the post title right off the bat?  Any takers at all?  For those that could, cool!  For those that can’t, 37 is a reference to the last podcast for 2009!  Episode #37 (Longevity of Lenses) is now available for your listening pleasure in iTunes and with the folks hosting the show directly on the web at Personal Life Media.  It might be an hour or so actually before the show is available for download on iTunes, so hold off for a little there before downloading – you might get the previous episode!  It does take a look at the subject of lens longevity much along the lines of the previous post here on the blog, but it also speaks to things like depreciation, and considers the business element of lenses too – so there’s always more in the podcast for blog readers to enjoy!

I can’t guarantee I will have a post ready for tomorrow, so this could also be the last post for 2009 as well.  It’s always fun to look back and review the year this close to the end.  I’ll have some more details trickling out once we’re into 2010, including the always popular “Best Blogs”.  There does seem to be a trend as in 2007 I posted my “Top 7 of ’07”, followed by the Top 8 of ’08, and most recently, the “Top 9 of ’09”.  Can you guess what is coming soon in January? 🙂

Here though, it seemed appropriate given that the podcast was released today, to note that it is episode 37 of the show.  That means 37 episodes in 52 weeks – that’s more than one every other week.  I am not sure what the average show length is, but am guessing it is in the 30-45 minute realm, which means some people out there have spent at least 26 hours (over a day!) listening to me talk about photography!  Got another day available for 2010?

I hope so because we’re going to have a lot more fun and cool stuff coming up in the podcast, and on the new radio show for newcomers over at WebtalkRadio!  More guests, more articles, more tips and tricks, and yes…more contests!  These shows and articles and contests though really are here for you, the listener and reader though, so if you want me to cover anything specific, please feel free to let me know in the comments of the blog or via email!

Anyway, enough of the “back story”.  Here’s the show notes:

Photo News:

Listener Q&A

Which Lens?

  • EF-S 15-85 f3.5-5.6 IS USM          (=24-136)
  • EF-S 18-135 f3.5-5.6 IS                 (=28-216)
  • EF-S 18-200 f3.5-5.6 IS                 (=29-320)
  • EF-S 17-85 f4-5.6 IS USM             (=27-136)

Scripting Resources:

There you have it!  Enjoy!

Last but not least…don’t forget the contest deadline is rapidly approaching – tomorrow midnight is your last chance to get your favorite Giving photo into the Flickr thread to be eligible for the prize bonanza!  Lots of stuff is going to go to some lucky participant, so get it up there and good luck!  Happy New Year one and all, and we’ll see you next year here on the blog/podcast/etc.!  Happy Shooting!