Downtown Toronto, its winter time and Absolute Tent and Event Services is stuffed to the rafters with everything required to make a party.  This place is a bonafide party bomb waiting to explode with tents and staging, folding chairs and tables, event lighting and so many other luxuries waiting to be delivered and assembled in backyards all over the Greater Toronto Area.  Kaboom its party time!

Just because its winter time is no excuse not to throw a party. This building is filled with heaters and insulated tents, snow blowers, troughs and buckets. Maybe we should have a made their photo contest a ‘winter parties’ theme?

Their building is huge and multi-faceted and worth visiting if you live in Toronto and you’re organizing an event. Tell them you’ve entered a photo on Lenzr and you may get 10% off…  maybe.

Here’s Laura, the Absolute blogger who is our eyes and ears inside this busy Toronto tent and party rentals house. She gives us the skinny on upcoming events, Hollywood film shoots, parades and even Toronto waterfront conditions from the perspective of a rentals house employee, which is kind of fascinating. The company does movies and big City of Toronto public occasions too, like Canada Day,  Woofstock and Gay Pride Parade  and so its possible she will have celebrity pictures and details about the assembly and clean-up of big urban bashes. Another interesting thing about Laura are the little glimpses we get into her daily life at the business, and how she struggles to improve her skills driving forklifts and

Backyard Party Events is for the little people who host their own good times at home. Every photographer worth his salt has party pictures and the ones we want to see will hopefully show off some residential geography and show off backyard BBQs, games and dancing under shady trees. Already there are shots of some rowdy kids and a whole of beer cans, but I think we can do better than that.

The prize for the Lenzr member that uploads the highest ranked picture is a spiffy new 10×10 Popup Tent, and $500 Gift Certificate * that must be spent at Absolute Tent and Event Services obviously. Laura is actually building the tent prize in the photo above and the Absolute blog will detail its specifics.

It’s March 1st 2010 today. Three photo contests ended on Lenzr at 12:01 am this morning, and now three more photo challenges are set to begin.  It wasn’t the smoothest contest we must admit - the changes to the voting algorithm caused severe problems when the votes were finally collected.  But all issues have been resolved, and now the website voting, grading and ranking mechanisms are well oiled and twice tested.

So let’s have a look at who won the last contests, how and why…

The Kids in Action photo contest was a real battlefield last month. With 27 photos uploaded and 851 total votes there was some competition for the prize , an advanced NiteWhite teeth bleaching kit courtesy of a Toronto dentist.

The photo named Soccer Stand by a rather prolific user named  seattledredge (why does nobody ever capitalize their username?) garnered the most votes.

Uploaded on: 27 Jan the image was a late addition and still managed to win with a score of 215.80 points.

The Total Votes:      116
Popular rating:        8.4 (99 votes)
Registered rating:   7.1 (17 votes)

Congratulations seattledredge !

The Everyday Tangled Web photo contest got the most attention, and to some extent it went viral as phone service technicians called each other and shared their most horrific case studies with the public.  There were 28 photos uploaded into the competition, and these images accrued 1680 votes.  The classic pictures uploaded by members Tialdone and Phonemaster were exceptionally good, real pictures of everyday tangled webs clogging telephone service rooms and data racks.  This is what the sponsor most wanted the public to see as this is the particular type of mess they specialize in curing.

Not surprisingly however the winner was a much less technical image that caught the hearts and tickled the minds of voting patrons.

The photo of a colourful stuffed animal lost in the wires and cables that was uploaded by a user named mroy won the challenge with humour and grace. Her picture, This Looks Yummy carried the storyful caption: “My twin grandsons hid this toy for me to find. Took me 2 hrs to find it, hidden behind my computer.”  The image with caption earned a total score of  573.30 points.
Total Votes:             247
Popular rating:      8.5 (189 votes)
Registered rating: 7.4 (68 votes)

Congratulations mroy ! You win the Plantronics Voyager wireless headset courtesy of an office phone systems provider in Markham Ontario!

And finally,

The winner of the Best Gourmet Food photo contest was Berry Delicious!, a photo uploaded by another very prolific photographer, member named sausma1 that she snapped at her friend’s wedding.

The caption reads, ‘There’s nothing like the taste sensation of squeezing seasonal fresh berries in your mouth. These are Mini-Creme Brulee with fresh berries.’

The very attractive and informative picture scored of 119.30 points

Total Votes:              47
Popular rating:       6.9 (32 votes)
Registered rating:  6.3 (15 votes)

Congratulations sausma1 ! This talented shutterbug will now be joining myself (and last session’s Macro Photos of Life contest winner Bill Watson plus guest) and The Wine Ladies on the Locaboire Eastern Ontario wineries and breweries tour

Stay focused on the Lenzr blog for stories about the winners as they receive their prizes.

The first contest period has ended now, September 1st 2009 and three winners have been declared. These members will soon be contacted by Lenzr admin re:  delivery of prizes, testimonials, and perhaps even candid self portraits. It was a very succesful launch and there were so many photos uploaded to the index we wondered about adopting some kind of photo Inventory Software to keep track of all the submissions in all different categories, and indeed this might be something we consider licensing in the future. In the meantime,

Best Toronto Skyline had 46 photos submitted, including some amazing shots with lightning and ducks and vintage shots of the skyline that have all together gathered up over 2500 votes.

The first contest was sponsored by Lenzr.com and brought a lot of attention to the site. The prize is a Pentax Optio P90 digital camera.

The winner is DuCourt, who describes himself in the third person in his Lenzr.com profile, “Thomas is a long-standing freelance film technician in the Toronto film industry who is attempting to transition into an on-set photographer”. That could explain the wide aspect ratio here.

The photo entitled Looking back is a wonderful panorama shot of the city and bears the Caption ‘I took this photo looking back from one of my favorite Toronto hang-outs - THE DOCKS driving range down on Cherry St.’ This photo won the prize with 107 green thumbs up.

Summer in Toronto had people snapping and submitting shots of anything and everything outdoors in Toronto . The rules were fast and loose to encourage mass participation.  This was the most successful contest with 58 pictures uploaded and over 3700 votes.

This contest was sponsored by myCELLmyTERMS and offers as reward one smart phone.

The winner is Snickerzmom, whose bio reads,  ‘just me, a great BF and three cats’.  She wins the grand prize with a picture of a man (her father?) at the Blue Jays game.

Dad at the Game had 112 green thumbs up and the caption may have contributed to the success of this image. Caption “This is one of my favourite pictures of my Dad. For me, enjoying the game with my Dad is one of the best things about TO. It’s our time!”

Stay tuned for more details on Snickerzmom meeting representatives of myCELLmyTERMS to declare her choice and receive the grand prize.

Which phone will she choose?
Emergency in Toronto had 15 photos and gathered over 300 total votes.

The contest was sponsored by Bristall Morgan and offers an Esquire Verve 2020 luxury watch as reward.

The winner is mpirra.  This photographer’s bio reads, ‘I have been an amateur photographer for the past 30 years. Would like to go pro one day‘.

The winning photo,  entitled Firefighter saving lives carries the helpful Caption “Toronto Firefighter returning from a fire”.  This image won the contest with 55 green thumbs up.

Emergency in Toronto event was the most rigidly thematic of Lenzr contest cycle #1. The web challenge tasked users to upload images of Toronto’s frontline emergency respeonse workers in action and because of the stern criteria it received the fewest votes, but perhaps the most attention. Some of our favourite photos have been uploaded here

Lenzr.com is almost sixty days old, and now has 73 members that have uploaded 114 original photos which have collectively amassed 6000 votes.  So far only one user has been banned from the website, and only four photos have been removed by Admin from the listings.

Here’s a glance at the Google Analytics dashboard for the entire first contest period. The spikes correspond to marketing initiatives by partners on various affiliated platforms. Participation is growing as Lenzr.com discovers new markets for contest data and streamlines the information distribution processes.

Hooray!  This is reason enough to cheer. I’ve seen other contests with twice the budget do half those numbers. And I want to give a shout out to those photographers who uploaded some really creative shots (like mighty shrimp’s picture of the 2008 Queen St Fire (below) and the lady who gave up the pictures of Cherry beach and Toronto Harbourfront. The high level of creativity is another big reason to cheer…Yay!

Summer in Toronto is the most successful contest with 56 pictures submissions and 3594 votes.  Highlights here include pictures of a man and dog eating ice cream, a Toronto Blue Jays fan, and a little boy in a splash pond.

Best Toronto Skyline has 44 photos submissions, including some amazing shots with lightning and ducks and vintage shots of the skyline, that have together gathered a total of  2390 votes.

Emergency in Toronto had 14 photos and 269 total votes – this was the hardest challenge and yet our favourite of the bunch. Photos like the one below (credit to mighty shrimp) are perfect as make Lenzr.com a worthwhile social political and historically culturally relevant destination.  In otherwords these shots make Lenzr cool.

Stay tuned for information on contest winners. These three contests end August 31st 2009. The Winners are the members who uploaded the most popular photos in each contest, as determined by the number of green thumbs up votes. And I should mention that the red ‘thumbs down’ vote does nothing, just so you know. Yes that’s what we’re changing…

UPCOMING CHANGES:
It’s no secret the voting mechanism is flawed – its too simple and inspires user manipulation. There’ll will be a multitude of minor changes coming in Contest Period #2 (the next round of contests will commence September 1st and conclude on October 31st 2009) The very first thing to be changed is the voting mechanism, alterations are also being made to the user registration process.

REGISTRATION:
Upcoming changes will force all current users to re register their usernames and profile information and check boxes to accept or deny coupons from sponsors, and other options.

LENZR WIDGET ADOPTERS
Have a look at DebLewis.ca and check out the 100x vertical sidebar widget on the lower half of the template.