This is the ghost photo contest. This lonely challenge has been haunting the Lenzr blog widget feeds for two months, but when you checked on the website, it didn’t appear in the line up.  It’s a mystery cruise, a whodunnit.  And now again it’s a ghost ship, set adrift in the night, a vessel without a sponsor to captain the storytelling. I remember how it all came about…

Lenzr is excited about summer in Canada. The clouds parted one day and it was warm outside. the Shafts of Sunlight photo contest triggers thoughts of summer fun exploring caves and crevices, old buildings and barns and dirty basement windows on really bright summer days. The inspiration for this contest came to us during a hard day at the office back in February. Let us paint you a picture of the gloomy start to that great ending day. It was raining and muggy outside. The offices of Lenzr are filled with beautifully detailed giant windows. We were all writing, clicking, and watching our computer screens. While our eyes were glued to our work, the rain stopped and rays of light creeped in through the windows to brighten the walls and hardwood floors . Rob was reminded of the beautiful Dutch paintings during the renaissance, and he will probably write about the Calling of St Matthew by Caravaggio? Is that right? But now we’re walking around with smiles on our faces because of the hot sun beaming in and the weather is finally becoming enjoyable. So I suppose its a celebration of the summer season.

The challenge is making a shaft of sunlight look solid. You want to make it look like a tangible object that you can reach out and hold in your hand. A talented photographer understands the task requires atmosphere. It’s not easy to photograph sunlight. And this is not about recording a sunny day, but rather an exercise in making sunlight tangible, and the true focus of the image.

Complete Home Concepts is a building contractor that specializes in the design / build of custom sunrooms and patio enclosures to bring sunlight into your domicile. They are experts at creating both residential and commercial sunrooms.

The prize is a Sony DSCH70 Camera (color subject to change) courtesy of a clever company.

HOW LENZR WORKS: There is a ten day Voting Period that begins July 15th and ends July 25th. During that time, people will be prompted to rate the pictures. The Top Ten photos advance to Lenzr Judges on July 25th – The winner is selected based on their preferences , their comments are often published in the Lenzr blog. The winner is announced in the Lenzr Blog on or before August 1st 2011. Good Luck! Contest open to all Canadians excluding Quebec (wink) Canada only – must be 13 yrs or older

An office party can be a lot of fun. It can be more awesome than a party with friends or a wedding occasion simply because it’s such a departure from the regular daily affairs that happen in the same space.  If you see the boss wheeling in a karaoke machine, or a DJ setting up in the lunchroom, you know what’s about to go down… It’s time to dim the lights, fire up the kitchen and find that stack of red plastic cups in the back of the stockroom closet from last year’s party—we’re looking for pictures of your Best Office Staff Party!

How does your office celebrate the good times? Do you have a dancing mascot pull people up onto a make-shift dance floor? Or perhaps a simple pot luck dinner? Are guests and spouses also invited to your company parties? Show us Christmas schmooze-fests and networking mixers, and Halloween theme parties in big offices are the best. James Bond theme is so cliche, but everyone has the costume.

This is a fun photo contest and we’re expecting to see a lot of humour in the submissions. Show us the perks and pitfalls of partying on the factory floor. Show us mild manner it staff, Javascript junkies, coders, developers, and Flash programmers stepping outside their shells and going crazy on the company’s dime. And remember, no one wants to be the person who had the most drinks at their staff party, but inevitably, someone’s got to do it. Please, just make sure that the subjects in your photo are okay with your entry before you submit it. We are NOT liable for any trouble you cause.

Stafflink IT Staffing Company Specializing in Recruiting, Placing and Staffing Technology Specialists

Stafflink is a Toronto IT staffing agency located right in the heart of downtown core. They are leaders in staffing IT analysts, developers, programmers and technical specialists in the GTA and beyond. Stafflink keeps at the front of the advancements in the technology industry, writing informatively on new tech topics on their interesting it staffing blog. If you’re looking for a job in IT, or hoping to hire technology talent for your company, look no farther than Stafflink.

The prize is a Sony laptop that’s perfect for information age vocational training.

Contest begins  June 1st 2011
Voting begins    July 15th 2011
Voting ends       July 25th 2011          Top Ten advance to Judges
Contest ends     August 1st 2011       Contest open to all Canadians age 13+

Lenzr contest producers are business storytellers, but they don’t know how their story ends until they tally up the Judges’ scores at the end of the match. The story ends when the winner gets their prize.

Lenzr is Canada’s first serial photo contest website; it’s an interactive arena for photographic arts competition and business storytelling.

Photo contest producers dream up visual challenges loosely related to their sponsor’s goods and services, and they administrate over a growing collection of user submitted content inside a sixty day campaign period.  In that time, Lenzr’s own social media marketers work really hard to engineer an ‘orchestra of participation’ around their visual fable in as many different niches as possible, all over the web.

Storytelling is a very important part of the process.   People want to be a part of something.  When they upload a photo on Lenzr, their picture becomes part of a bigger story – their fridge contains something unusual, or they once survived a terrible storm – these are sponsored stories from the April May 2011 session.  A printable coupons website wonders What’s In The Fridge? and a commercial roofing company asks folks to Weather The Storm and tell them about it.

People are storytellers too, and they want a place to share their amusing images, and they want a chance to have the best story, perhaps even more than they want the actual prize.

Web 2.0 is a term that describes the use of Worldwide Web technology to enhance creativity, information sharing, and most notably, collaboration among users. Tim O’Reilly defines Web 2.0 as ‘a set of economic, social, and technology trends that collectively form the basis for the next generation of the Internet—a more mature, distinctive medium characterized by user participation, openness, and network effects’.

The best Lenzr contests create a visual database of user submitted knowledge that remains relevant to the sponsor’s niche long after the contest ends.

Ontario Tourist Attractions and Canadian Beaches are two excellent examples of how photo contests can build a rich media resource to benefit society for the rest of time.

Each user submitted photo becomes part of the business story. (Note: the photos supplement the media-rich story for our sponsors, they do NOT become the sponsor’s property).

Graveyard Zombie’s Food Hunt by a member named lenzrgirl2011 is a brilliant self portrait taken from inside her fridge. This user found time to get creative and tell us a convincing story about her ‘long night’s work’ at a hospital and her sweet slumber during the day. She’s a natural storyteller, and will no doubt be rewarded with a prize.. someday. All she has to do is get into the Top Ten, and the Judges will be so moved by her story, they may give her composition the nod.  She could win $500 worth of groceries from a printable coupons website.

Custom made Lenzr photo contests are a great addition to any Web 2.0 interactive marketing campaign, especially longer campaigns that are theme related. Each sponsored page becomes a bastion of user submitted visual content that can be tweeted and added to Facebook.

What’s the secret behind Lenzr?

Shutterbugs locked in competition need friends to come vote and comment on their pictures so they earn a place in the Top Ten user-ranked images. Consequently they must promote their submissions on forums, art groups, and on their own Facebook and Twitter updates, and this action shares engagement through multiple people networks. That’s Lenzr – that’s why it works. People get excited about seeing and sharing their art.

And let’s remember the sharing won’t happen unless the story is cool –people want to show off their work and remind friends of their abilities, but they won’t play if it’s too commercial or too boring.

Voting is how we throw gasoline on the image stack and set it ablaze. The client’s story and brand logo is right above this well optimized stack of user submitted content. Our Google Analytics data always shows a sharp incline in participation right around the forty-five day period when voting begins, and that’s also a part of instigating a web 2.0 story. Lenzr builds a collection, and then optimizes it through voting.  The story ends when the winner gets the prize.

The results are in, the Feb / March winning photos have been decided!

The February March photo contest period set many records. There were over 300 pictures entered into nine competitions. These submission collected over 10,000 votes! Lenzr’s judges had their work cut out for them picking only one winner in all nine challenges, especially when so many beautiful entries were submitted for each challenge.

Announcing Lenzr’s Latest Winners!

Take a look at our winners as well as a bit of commentary from our six fantastic Lenzr Judges:  Jacques Surveyer, Chris Kovacs, Brian and Joan Stirling, Marc Gendron and Matt Zielinski.

1.  On Stage At Home

The On Stage at Home photo contest attracted 21 photo submissions which garnered 775 votes.

Winning photograph: ‘Super Hero’ by sweatereyes.

The Judges wrote,

-the photographer has demonstrated great timing with this action shot

-well exposed and well frozen in time, no motion blur
-nice use of colour and light—the photo is not backlit which you might expect in a photo with a window in the background.

This photo references a movie called Kickass.

Following up on some concerns, we contacted sweatereyes and asked if the picture was indeed her own picture? a self portrait? how did she manage that? and this is what she wrote in her email reply,

Yes, that picture is an original.  The entire costume is hand-made by me (with the exclusion of the wig), and is based off of the character Kit Girl from Kickass.  The window is in my living room, and it is overlooking Dundas Street in London, Ontario.  This particular street is known for crime (drug deals, assault.. you name it), making it a suitable place for a super hero to keep watch.  The sign that is slightly visible in the photo (the pink and purple) is a lingerie store, and is what I am lucky enough to see out of every window in my apartment.  That is also me in the photograph, which resulted in a lot of me running back and forth.

Congratulations, sweatereyes, you’ve won a fabulous animal print rug courtesy of Stirling Home Studio, a veteran home stager in the competitive downtown Toronto condominium market.

2. Beautiful Factories

The Beautiful Factories photo contest is the successor to last session’s Broken Factories challenge, and the submitted pictures as numerous and equally beautiful.  This contest was successful in terms of overall participation with 33 images in contention and 1885 total votes.

Winning Photograph: ‘Five Roses’ by sarahgo

The Judges wrote,

-great exposure in tough lighting conditions
-simple and straightforward, but could be cropped
-good use of long exposure to bring out colour.

As the administrator, I must tell you all here that this photo was flagged by several members as being fraudulent. They believed the picture belonged to someone else who has the same Five Roses flour mill pic in his Flickr photostream and indeed his gallery shows several pics of the mill from a few different angles.  So we contacted the member, first name Sarah, and asked her to prove that this was indeed her image. She replied in great length and took the time to point out the differences in the pictures including exposure and star filters on lights – and oddly there were less lights on the building below the bridge in the other guy’s photo? Could they have changed the building in the time period between the shots? Weird.

Congratulations, sarahgo, you’ve won an Apple iPad!

3. Best Patio in Canada

The Best Patio in Canada photo contest on Lenzr accrued 26 photos and 776 votes.

Winning Photograph: ‘Distillery’ by Vagabondage_Press

Lenzr is located in the historic Distillery District and we know how many people wander around the property taking pictures. This place must be among the most heavily photographed areas of Toronto. Personally I find this photo is oddly depressing.  The boarded up bldgs in the background and empty streets are ‘sad’ to me. It looks like the kind of picture you’d see on an album cover of a county and western singer.

The Judges wrote,

-much character is illustrated in this photograph
-great capture of grittiness and durability

This contest was sponsored by Velago Patio Furniture here in Toronto and they’re standing by, ready to ship out a bistro table and two resin wicker chairs to the winner.  Like the furniture in this photo, these ‘durable’ pieces of outdoor furniture are made especially for Canadians. The material is designed to withstand the heat of our summers and the cold winters, ice snow and rain. The Velago Patio Furniture blog is interactive and informative homemade media art.  Go there and connect with Urs – he’s great fun. We show our other blog friends his portal because it’s so well constructed. His blog is a true labour of love from a skilled social media master at this patio furniture company.

Congratulations, Vagabondage_Press, you’ve won a patio furniture set! You and Urs will meet perhaps and I hope he writes a blog post about you and your fantastic, if slightly depressing image.

4. Making Green Power

The Making Green Power photo contest collected 19 photos and 443 votes. We expected more participation here but ended up with a nice healthy match. And it wasn’t all solar panes and windmills either, while they did make up the majoriy of the snaps, there was also an ethanol plant, some vegetable power a female mannequin wearing a dress made entirely of empty shotgun shells.

Winning Photograph: ‘Midnight Wind’ by smaku

The Judges wrote,
- great black and white photo with nifty smear of windmill vanes
- could be cropped
- a very creative entry for this contest
- well composed and captured

Congratulations, smaku, you’ve won an Escape 150 portable solar kit! This is an ultra portable, dependable and completely modular alternative energy system. This kit courtesy of Solarline Power: Ontario Microfit program. The Escape 150 is a small renewable energy device designed to provide electric power for the adventurer that travels light. The sophisticated unit will handily power all devices you bring along on your next camping trip, minor outdoor construction project, or mineral prospecting expedition. The system provides the traveler with 150 watt-hours of rechargeable power and features an integrated 80-watt inverter that provides regulated safe power while protecting your connected devices from power surges. Now you can harness energy collected by the Boulder 15M Solar Panel or quickly power up from a regular outlet to be used whenever or wherever you need it.

5. Reflections in Pools

The Reflections in Pools photo contest was a huge success. There were 86 photos uploaded in this competition and the match collected 2068 votes. That was the most participation  in all of the nine different contests. This challenge clearly struck a chord with people. Obviously every enjoys a good reflection.

Winning Photograph: ‘Shimmering Reflections’ by tluvr

The Judges wrote,

-fine exposure
-great composition given challenging conditions

Congratulations, tluvr, you’ve won an Olympus Stylus TOUGH-8800 underwater camera!

6. Up Against The Wall

The Up Against the Wall photo contest was another wildly successful web attraction. The idea of celebrating images that are shallow- focused on the subject with little or no depth of field was sufficiently intriguing as  71 photos were submitted and 3111 votes were registered.

Winning Photograph: ‘The Wailing Wall of Jerusalem’ by nkuchmak

You can read all about Nick Kuchmak on his World on a Toilet blog site; he was kind enough to leave us the address in his profile. We wish more folks would do that btw. Anyway you can learn a lot about Nick Kuchmak on the About page on The World on a Toilet website. There’s even a picture of the photographer. The site chronicles the recent experience he had backpacking around the world with his girlfriend.

The Judges wrote,

-both the wall and the subject have an emotional impact; lots of character
-very nice composition for what looks like an unprepared shot

My own thoughts were that the man was holding a cellphone, but when I looked closer, I could see that he had no phone but yet still seems to have a connection, a means of communication, with the wall.

Congratulations, nkuchmak, you’ve won a Sony laptop! Also I should mention here that we have invited Nick Kuchmak to become a Lenzr Judge, in honour of his winning two separate photo contests in one session.  He is considering it.

7. Soap Foam and Bubbles

The Soapy Foam and Bubbles photo contest was perhaps the most interesting match in the last photo contest period. There were 36 photos uploaded into the challenge and these images accrued 1287 votes.

Winning Photograph: ‘Hung to Dry’ by Vinzr

The Judges remarked,

-love the creativity of this photographer
-well captured and composed
-nice composition, original concept and otherwise a great picture.

When I followed up with Vinzr (we love  his name) to ask about a story behind the picture he explained,

Personally I think the picture is kinda ugly… sure it’s original yes, but not very pretty. I wouldn’t frame this shot, or hang this on the wall for example.  Although it doesn’t matter a lick I’ll tell you that my choice would have been Martin Savaria’s Bubble Bug that he only uploaded on the 23rd of March (and so it wasn’t even in the official Top Ten), but that shot is art.

However the majority of Judges picked ‘Hung to Dry’ so congratulations Vinzr, you’ve won a Sony laptop!

8.  People Dancing

In the competition called People Dancing, there were 13 photos submitted and 353 votes.

The Winning Photograph is called ‘Monk Dancing’ by nkuchmak

The Judges wrote,

-this shot captures the exuberance and physical exhilaration of dancing
-nice capture of the motion of the dancers and the concentration on their faces
-the shoes’ anachronism is amusing as well

Seattledredge’s picture of the couple dancing in the swimming pool was the runner – up.

Congratulations, nkuchmak, you’ve won two pairs professional dancing shoes! Because Nick is the photographer that recently backpacked all over the world with his girlfriend, now he can take her dancing in professional dancing shoes – unlike the sneakers seen on the dancers in the prize winning photo.

9. An Unlikely Marriage

The Unlikely Marriage photo contest was the most unusual of the session and required more than just good camera skills. This challenge attracted 49 submissions and 1783 votes. Each picture has some very obvious dichotomy.

Winning Photograph: ‘Barnyard Friends’ by paulinchains

The Judges wrote,

-impressive evening lighting, shows creativity
-well composed, nice camera angle

This contest was very popular, and there were incredible images, most notably an old tom cat eying a parrot,  a small Boston Terrier in love with a stuffed doll, and small boys and red cherries frozen in snow.

Congratulations, paulinchains, you’ve won an iPad! This barnyard love affair is intriguing and very well photographed.

Lenzr Celebrates Skill By Creating Tricky Themes and Difficult Challenges

We must repeat, the majority of the pictures uploaded in all nine contests were fantastic, and the Top Ten groupings have never looked better.

We should mention however that one of our judges, Jacques Surveyor noted  that he would have liked to have seen better cropping in many of the photos.  Most cameras today have zoom lenses and plenty of pixels, so he suggests zooming in closer to the point of interest or cropping the picture using photo editing software. Jacques plans to run a cropping tutorial on his Photo Finishes blog (just a tip for our next contest period). Finally, before we announce the winners, we’d like to thank everyone who participated in the contests this session. The sponsors are thrilled. Your input and creativity are greatly appreciated.

JUDGES: Thank so much to our fantastic panel of Judges for performing such a difficult task. And thanks again to you, Lenzr members who continue to surprise and delight us with your style and creativity. Stay tuned for next month’s contest for new challenges, great prizes and superb Canadian photography!

New Lenzr Judge and his Photographic Journey

Chris Kovacs is the winner of Broken Factories photo contest on Lenzr that ended January 1st 2011.  His beautiful black and white photograph called No Trespassing garnered hundreds of votes from an adoring public. Now he’s moving on to be one of new panel of Lenzr Judges. Looking into his past, it’s easy to see where he found his passion and skills for photography. He has quite the background, and future, with photos.
Chris was born into a photo friendly family in Edmonton in 1976. His grandfather was a photographer and he was fortunate enough to receive his first camera at age eight. But back then photography wasn’t his only tool for self expression; he also played drums.
In 1999 Chris experienced a real transformational period in his life, and he says he “moved to Vancouver to escape an ex girlfriend.” His flight for sanity took him to Vancouver Community College to study Civil and Structural Drafting. The Broken Factories photo contest with Lenzr was perhaps an excellent combination of interest in old decayed structural steel buildings and the photography.

In 2004 Chris married a lovely local girl who shortly thereafter gave birth to their two photogenic sons. These beautiful creations were meant to be photographed by Chris and he honed his skills at portraiture by capturing their early years with a cheap point and shoot camera. His family was a huge source of inspiration for his photography practice, and he bought a Sony SLR in 2006 to take better quality photos. He then moved on to a much better NIKON D80 in 2007 along with a 70-200mm VR. He followed the demand and began selling professional ‘head shots’ for models and actors, and of course lots of family portraits.

Chris evolved further and began exploring daytime long exposure photography. He soon developed a liking for fine art landscape photography. He was influenced by David Burdeny, Michael Kenna and Josef Hoflehner.

In mid 2007 had special neutral density filters constructed by a German company and this fortunately allowed for extremely long exposures in broad daylight.  Chris began assembling a portfolio of long exposure seascapes and landscapes, and that garnered quite a bit of media attention.

In late 2007, Chris Kovacs made his debut in the limelight with a flattering two page article about his work and long exposure photography printed in the Burnaby Newspaper. It didn’t stop there. In early 2008, he was also published in another two page piece in an international photography magazine called Practical Photography. In the summer of 2008, he began his portfolio of travel pictures and landscapes shooting pics in Eastern Europe, specifically Croatia, Germany, Austria. The following year he became interested in wedding photography and he upgraded to a Nikon D90 to give it a try. However in 2009 he decided wedding photography was not his thing and shot his first and last wedding. “What was I thinking?” is what comes to mind when Chris reflects back on his photographic journey. During this time he also dabbled in photographing in fog.  Perhaps he was not thinking clearly at the time.

The following year in 2010 Chris focused on producing ultra wide angle photography. He made another photography investment with a purchase of a Sigma 10-20mm lens. This inspired the beginning of a wide angle street photography portfolio – the project is the perfect opportunity for the young photographer to experiment with multiple layers and exposures to create a single image.

New Photography Ventures for Chris

Chris’s passion for photography keeps expanding. He launched his own e-venture website Dark Shutter Photography. He continues to look for new photography challenges and opportunities. In November 2010 he stumbled across Lenzr and entered the Broken Factories photo contest and won. Last week his prize arrived – he received a Toshiba Netbook for his trouble. He has since been invited, and has accepted, a role as one of six new Lenzr Judges. His reputation for award winning black and white photography continues to expand; he was just recently was interviewed in B&W magazine.

Chris Kovacs has become a catalyst for the collection of knowledge with the launch his own black and white fine art photography magazine. Adore Noir Black & White Photography Magazine is a high-quality online publication of fine art photography, and a source of inspiration to photographers and other individuals interested in this fascinating fine art. Be sure and check out the Adore Noir Facebook Page; please support our Lenzr Judge with his creative passion so we can all benefit from his experience.

It is time for us to start finding different ways of harvesting our energy. All the environmental concerns make planet earth number one priority, and Making Green Power photo contest takes that into consideration. The world is going green and it is time we marvel in that.

What you need to know:

For this contest take pictures of green power systems and show us how far we have come to improve our energy source. It can be a picture of Carbon friendly hydro electricity doing it’s work on a small scale home. It can also be an image of waterwheels. Capture a picture of what carbon friendly electricity is to you and what you are doing to improve our planet.

Our Sponsor:

SolarLine Power helps bring your home or office into an energy-preserving world. Ardent supporters of subsidies and government incentives, they’ve built a web page explaining their role in the Ontario Microfit program which offers substantial benefits to home or small business owners with renewable solar systems of 10 kilowatts or less. Environmentally friendly decisions can be made for your home or even your office.

The Prize:

The prize for this contest is very exciting. It is a portable solar kit. If you are just getting into the grove of things and want to learn more about the game then The Escape 150 is great for you. The Escape 150 gives 150-watt/hour of rechargeable energy source. You can harness energy collected by the Boulder 15M Solar Panel. You can also quickly it power up from a regular outlet to be used whenever or wherever you need it.

Voting starts March 15^th 2011 and ends on March 25^th 2011. From there our judges will deliberate and the winner will be announced April 1^st 2011. Check out our post on our judges to learn more about what impresses them. Lenzr is open to all Canadians, contest not valid in Quebec.

This contest is about using water as a medium of reflection. Don’t think just swimming in a pool of water, but instead think about how to use the pool to create a reflection of shimmering lights.

What you need to know:

The objective of this contest is for you to take pictures of water reflections. Think under water lights, or the beautiful sunset on the beach. The main things needed for Reflections in Pools are water, reflection and a light. It can be rain trickling down a window with the reflection of a person on the inside watching. Be creative and surprise us with your shots. A pool of water must be the source of your image.

Our sponsor:

Pro Green Landscaping design is sponsoring this contest. They specialize in swimming pool and landscaping design. They are known for their great customer service and 20 year experience. Pro Green stands behind every project and design they work on.

The Prize:

Alright all you photography fans, you are going to go gaga for this prize. Olympus STYLUS TOUGH-8800 underwater camera courtesy of Pro Green. The Olympus camera is virtually indestructible. Make with Breakthrough features like Dual Image Stabilization and Tap Control make it hard to hurt. A revolutionary system of waterproof seals and gaskets keeps water out so you can take pictures as deep as 33 feet underwater.

Voting starts March 15^th 2011 and ends on March 25^th 2011. From there our judges will deliberate and the winner will be announced April 1^st 2011. Check out our post on our judges to learn more about what impresses them. Lenzr is open to all Canadians, contest not valid in Quebec.

PETS IN WINTER COATS photo contest winner heidip, her husband Ken, and canine family member Rocco proudly display their red electric snow blower. The LENZR photo contest requested photographers of all levels to submit pictures of their pets in their winter fashion outfits. Many of us have canine family members in society today and take measures to protect them. This contest celebrated the protection from extreme temperatures and inclement weather necessary for our furry family in the Canadian winter climates. Looking at the Lenzr contest photo submissions for the Pets in Winter Coats challenge, you can see the best outfit compliments their friendly personalities and also keeps them warm and safe. Well, Heidip’s photo of her beagle Rocco proved to be smartly dressed for the prairie winter. He was definitely dressed to impress with his knit sweater and bundled scarf.

Voting began on November 20, 2010 and the highest ranked photo won the Craftsman snow blower prize when the contest ended December 1, 2010. The contest was open to all Canadians age 13 years and older. The photograph of Rocco proved to be a favourite of the viewers with a final score of 1017.7 votes. The whole Pets in Winter Coats photo contest attracted 3500 votes and had 19 photos submissions.

This photo contest was sponsored by an exceptional snow removal company The Snowmen, servicing Pickering, Ajax and Whitby in south eastern Ontario. They’re well staffed and equipped to plow everything from the smallest residential driveway to the largest commercial parking lots.

The Snow Blower Prize arrived Dec 28th, 2010

The prize winner, Heidi Pawluk and her dog waited in anticipation for their snow blower in their Winnipeg home. “What better time than now for our Canadian winter” said Heidi. When asked about the arrival of her snow blower prize to Winnipeg she had mentioned that the Craftsmen snow blower arrived and her hubby Ken and pooch Rocco eagerly put it together. Rocco the beagle photo model had to help out in the easy assembly as well by having his nose in every part sniffing with sheer delight of the future winter possibilities with the new snow blower. Heidi said that Craftsmen snow blower was quite easy to assemble with straight forward instructions and is light-weight and easy to use. She also claimed that the fact that it’s electric was another fantastic feature that she loved. One just plugs it in and was all set to go, and of course it is environmentally friendly. Heidi’s husband Ken is looking forward to using the snow blower in their snowy city on the Canadian prairies. Canine Rocco is even more delighted than Ken because he will be able to clear some amazing paths through the snow for this furry hound to explore during the winter blizzard months. “Clearing the snow will be a breeze with this great win of a Craftsmen snow blower” said Ken.

Three photo contests ended on Jan 1st 2011. Sand Dollars seen above, won the designer swimwear prize in the Canadian Beaches photo contest.

Canadian Beaches collected 73 photos from Lenzr members. This body of work was voted on 1084 times by members and their friends. The marvelous image by Cltikal, entitled Sand Dollars, was shot on the beach at Tofino British Columbia, and had the highest score of 154.7 points out of 402 total views.

A sand dollar is a marine animal that resembles a large coin. Sand dollars belong to a class of animals known as Echinoids and are close relatives of the sea urchin and starfish. Many people are familiar with sand dollars that have washed up on the beach, becoming bleached by the sun to a light sandy color. The ones above are probably still alive, and their presence nicely illustrates the flat sandy expanse of that coastline in Tofino, British Columbia, Canada. Well done Cltikal.

From what could have been the same roll of film, Cltikal also won the Making It Beautiful photo contest for the image of a man drawing a heart in the sand of the beach. Same beach? probably.

The Making It Beautiful contest had some incredible images uploaded to the index, which numbered 41 photos in total. The collection was voted upon 1107x and Cltikal’s winning photo, Writing in Sand finished with a score of 142.7 out of 555 total views. The caption reads, The beach is already a beautiful place but why not make your own mark on it with a gesture of love!

Congratulations again Cltikal, you will be mailed a gift pack containing approx $500 worth of Aveda beauty products. Stay tuned for that exciting blog entry in the near future.

Other noteworthy images that must be mentioned would include Doing what you love by pamela-mark, and there is something perfectly wonderful about the green colours and childlike simplicity of MrBishop‘s See Turtle. My personal favourite from the entire contest was Martin Savaria‘s Good dogs, which features a man sculpting two massive pack animals out of snow.

Broken Factories photo contest collected 33 pictures which then earned 1193 votes by members and visitors to the website. The winner was No Trespassing, a black and white ghostlike image from a Vancouver shooter named Chris Kovacs.  The picture has the description, “The remains of an insane asylum from the late 1800′s which later became a storage facility.” Its all rather haunting.

NOTE ABOUT FUTURE JUDGING

This is the last time that Lenzr photo contests will be conducted without ‘judging’ by sponsor and admin. Starting Feb 1st, at least one judge but preferably a body of judges will select the winning photo from the Top Ten, which are decided by voting on site.

On the 10th of Dec 2010 Melani Chong of The Soyaboutique met Seattle Dredge the winner of the Water on Skin photo contest on Lenzr.

While Lenzr admin took pictures and made notes, Melani Chong of the Soyaboutique natural skin care gave Seattle Dredge over $500 worth of organic soy beauty products

Seattle’s picture The Dive won the contest. There were 28 pictures uploaded and 338 votes.

She also talked a lot about natural skin care products and generously donated one hour of her knowledge and dozens of valuable beauty tips specific to these innovative, organic products.

Beautifying Prize Winner

Seattle Dredge was delighted to win the $5oo dollars worth of Soyaboutique products. Although Seattle has relatively youthful looking skin, she received all natural skin care moisturizer that is a organic serum and comes complete with the hydrators people have been requesting. Seattle was encouraged to use the moisturizer to preserve her younger looking skin and keep it wrinkle free in the future.

Melani helped Seattle come up with her own skin care routine. The products will certainly help her keep that young and healthy looking appearance even when she travels. These green water based cosmetic products were made for women of all ages and skin types. When you hear the sound of the “pop” on the SoySilk can – know that it’s a unique designed  lid that helps ensure its clean and sludge-free.

Seattle definitely had thoughts of other ladies in her life that would benefit from these natural beauty products and their straight forward simple use. The prize package consisted of aromatherapy healing balm. If you are tired and want to boost your energy these products will also help boost your immune system. Enclosed in the Lenzr contest prize was also was cream cleanser, which compared to grandmas cold cream is very gentle. Make no mistake this is a tear free foaming cleanser, emulsive cleanser, and is indeed an “instant face Lift” – tightening serum, repairing serum. Its a spray toner which is a mildly scented refreshing spray that is a fantastic disinfectant for yoga mats and other equipment. These vegan cosmetic products are sometimes milky in colour. Not to worry, these cosmetics are not clear due to the natural qualities. It’s like keeping the pulp in your juice. The nutrients such as vitamin C remain.

Products That Heal

Some of the other things included in seattledredge’s prize package was a series of healing products from their line for sensitive skin. The hypersensitive cleanser and moisturizer are hypo-allergenic and great for younger looking skin without causing irritation. The latter is more of a serum, to be applied at night while the skin repairs itself. It provides maximum hydration and won’t clog pores because they’re water-based. With health-savvy shoppers now recognizing that  oil-based products can use cheap ingredients and can damage the skin, soy moisturizer and other natural beauty products have been all the rage. Designed by Donna Bishop, a friend of Chong’s who also designed cosmetics for professional models,  these products are fresh, organic, and natural.

A Simple Skincare Regimen Without All The Fuss

When asked about her skincare routine, Seattle is like many of us – a minimalist with little time to spend on excessive facials. With her hectic days, there will be times when Seattle would just wash her face with water and not remove her makeup. For busy, on-the-go gals like Seattle, Melani recommends the Makeup Emulsion Cleanser, which is great for all skin types and makes life a little simpler by being hypo-allergenic. What exactly does this term mean? It means that it’s unlikely to cause an allergic reaction and because it’s tar-free, non-scented, and very mild, it’s safe enough to use around the eyes.
Seattle can take the healing process one step further by using Soya Boutique’s Aromatherapy Healing Balm. For those long days, this balm’s energizing scent will combat fatigue and boost energy levels, while — get this — also helping to boost your immune system. The health benefits of this product are so impressive that they are even used in some movie sets.

Although Seattle already has great, youthful skin, Melani Chong reminded her that she can maintain that youthfulness longer by using serum at night. This helps to lock in the moisture and keeps skin hydrated, which is essential for that youthful, dewy look. Using emulsion serum locks in moisture and tightens the skin – it’s like a face lift in a bottle. While Seattle does not have acne, Chong advises that she can indeed combat that occasional breakout by using a vitamin C serum instead; “it’s a great moisturizer and your skin will drink it up” Melani says.

With a big basket of goodies to bring home, Seattle can either use them all herself or share with her friends; the products are versatile because these water based soy cosmetics are balanced for so many different skin types. Soyaboutique gives each user the power to customize their own skin care regimen.

We hope that Seattle Dredge will enjoy her grand prize and enjoy all the benefits of Soyaboutique’s natural skincare products!