Zen Monday: #200

Zen Monday #200! I can hardly believe it.

Zen Monday is the day you write about the photo and I don't. And today is special.

Because prizes!

The winner will receive a Lowepro EXS 160 Photo/Video bag (navy blue) and adjustable camera strap. The runner-up will receive a lovely City of Pasadena square chrome key chain.

Anyone can win and there are no criteria. You can comment as many times as you like. I think you can vote as many times as you like, too, though I'm not sure how the polling thing works. I'll put that up tonight.

Because of how the poll thingy is set up, we'll have to whittle it down to a few candidates and enter their names for voting. By the end of today we ought to have some front-runners. If you have opinions about who they should be, please say so. Let your voice be heard, otherwise I'll pick the finalists myself.

Tomorrow you will get to vote for your favorite comment today, and it can be your favorite for any reason whatsoever. I can't think of any rules, really, except have fun.

Thank you for visiting Pasadena Daily Photo. I'm always so glad when you do.

What Ho!

Yes, witches, warlocks, faeries, wenches, knights, lords and ladies, I visited the Renaissance Pleasure Faire yesterday and had a jolly good time. I enjoyed the jousting, the falconry, the pageantry, the meat pies and more. This party is wild.

RenFaire is very much up my alley, or rather, up my tiny, dark, piss-rank Elizabethan street. I love the costumes, the noise (well, not the noise), the bawdy jokes and the mead (I adore the mead). And here's the best part: I had a pre-paid ticket which I forgot to take with me, so I have to go again!

Which brings me to the contest we're having here on the blog today. One of the many Faire vendors gave me some discount admission coupons. I don't know why he did it but I LOVE him for it so I'll give him a plug even though he didn't ask for it. He's Jeff Price, a glass blower who makes the most beautiful things, including the Witch Balls above. (Faire vendors sell gorgeous, high-quality, hand-made items.) Thanks to Jeff, I'm sharing these discount coupons with you. The regular Faire gate price is $25 but you can get in for $15 with one of these babies. (Parking is an additional $10.) Since Faire ends on May 20th and it's only on weekends, I'm giving away all ten coupons today. That gives them time to get to you when I mail them on Monday.

So: please answer this question: In my novel, Camelot & Vine, what is the name of the character Casey Clemens plays in her TV commercials for the Gone! company?

Email the correct answer to me (the link is in my profile at top left). Please include your mailing address; that'll save us some time. I will not add you to a mailing list. (If you want to be on my mailing list I'd love to have you, just go to my website and opt in at the top right of any page under "Let's connect.") Anyone can enter. If by midnight Pacific time I receive more than ten correct answers, I'll put them all into a hat tomorrow and draw ten winners at random. If we have fewer, I'll give the extra coupons to my unsuspecting friends and neighbors.

By the way, I did touch the witch balls. So far, I'm good.

Google Science Fair seeks budding Einsteins and Curies

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

Are you a student who loves science? Do you have a good idea for an experiment that you’d like to share with the world? In 1996, two young computer science students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, had a hypothesis that there was a better way to find information on the web. They did their research, tested their theories and built a search engine which (eventually) changed the way people found information online. Larry and Sergey were fortunate to be able to get their idea in front of lots of people. But how many ideas are lost because people don’t have the right forum for their talents to be discovered? We believe that science can change the world—and one way to encourage that is to celebrate and champion young scientific talent as we do athletes and pop idols.

To help make today’s young scientists the rock stars of tomorrow, in partnership with CERN, The LEGO Group, National Geographic and Scientific American, we’re introducing the first global online science competition: the Google Science Fair. It’s open to students around the world who are between the ages of 13-18. All you need is access to a computer, the Internet and a web browser.

You may have participated in local or regional science fairs where you had to be in the same physical space to compete with kids in your area. Now any student with an idea can participate from anywhere, and share their idea with the world. You build and submit your project—either by yourself or in a team of up to three—entirely online. Students in India (or Israel or Ireland) will be able to compete with students in Canada (or Cambodia or Costa Rica) for prizes including once-in-a-lifetime experiences (like a trip to the Galapagos Islands with a National Geographic Explorer), scholarships and real-life work opportunities (like a five-day trip to CERN in Switzerland). And if you’re entering a science fair locally, please feel free to post that project online with Google Science Fair, too!

To enter, register online and create your project as a Google Site. Registration is open through April 4, 2011. Please note: you must get parental or guardian consent in order to compete. You can check out the complete rules here. After April 4, we’ll begin judging and will announce our semi-finalists in early May.

The semi-finalist projects will be posted on our online gallery, where we’ll encourage the public to vote for a “people’s choice” winner. From our list of semi-finalists, we’ll select 15 finalists to bring their projects to Google headquarters on July 11 to compete in our final, live event, where world-renowned science judges will select a winner in each age category, as well as a grand-prize winner.

Here's an example of a great science fair project site to inspire you. We asked Tesca, a U.S. high school senior from Oregon, to create it for us based on an award-winning project she’s been working on for years. Tesca’s objective is to make hospitals more efficient using artificial intelligence—a world-changing goal, to be sure.

So if you think you're the next Albert Einstein, Marie Curie—or Larry Page or Sergey Brin—sign up today for the Google Science Fair. Prove once again how science can change the world!

Posted by Cristin Frodella and Samantha Peter, Education Product Marketing Managers

Who's the newest Super Modeler? Vote!

(Cross-posted from the Official SketchUp Blog)

Today we’re announcing a new approach to bestowing “Super Modeler” status on our geo-modeling rock stars. More on that below—but first a little history.

A new form of 3D modeling began when @Last Software, the maker of SketchUp, was acquired by Google in 2006. Modeling 3D buildings for the purpose of viewing them in Google Earth went from being a quirky activity to a new art form. We refer to it as "geo-modeling.”

Being 3D enthusiasts ourselves, we were always on the lookout for good building models in the 3D Warehouse. When we discovered particularly impressive ones, we would add them to the featured modeler collection.

Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood by Arrigo Silva

Internally, we used the phrase “super modelers” to describe the people creating these amazing models, but it wasn’t until we started planning the first geo-modeling conference in August of last year that we began to publicly refer to modelers in this way. Following the event, a newsgroup was established, a collection created, and the user community representing some of the most skilled geo-modelers was officially born.

As the geo-modeling community expanded, so did the number of people creating remarkable models. We continued to add new modelers as we discovered them, and earlier this year we introduced badges in the 3D Warehouse—with one designated specifically for Super Modelers.

The coveted Super Modeler badge

With badges comes competition—more and more modelers began to ask how they could earn this honor. As time passed it became evident that we needed a clear set of criteria by which a modeler would be considered. The time had also come to establish greater transparency for how these decisions were being made, and who was making them.

So today we’re announcing a new process to become a Super Modeler—you decide!

It works like this: Each month the Super Modeler community will nominate ten geo-modelers who they believe are, well, super. Votes will be accepted for a three-week period. At the end of that period, the modeler who has received the most votes will become the newest Super Modeler.

In addition to being awarded a Super Modeler badge, the winner’s collection will be prominently featured on the Google 3D Warehouse until the next Super Modeler is selected. They'll also receive a one-of-a-kind “I’m a Google Supermodel(er)” t-shirt from the Google team.

It all starts now: Take a look at November's nominees, then cast your vote for the next Google Super Modeler!

Posted by Bruce Polderman, Product Manager

Announcing the Panoramio Photo Contest

The Panoramio community enables you to share your photos and explore them on Google Earth, Google Maps and other places. If you’ve never geo-tagged a photo, watch this video to learn how easy it is to add photos to the Panoramio layer in Google Earth.

Now you can add some excitement to your photo project and enter your photos to the monthly Panoramio Geotagged Photo Contest! Starting this month, we’ll be giving away the new Casio Hybrid-GPS camera EX-H20G to the winner of each category (Scenery, Heritage, Travel and Unusual Location). The Panoramio community reviews all of the submissions and votes for what they consider to be the best each month.


Casio’s new Hybrid-GPS camera combines a GPS engine with autonomic positioning made possible by a motion sensor. This makes geotagging easy—both outdoors and indoors.


If you haven’t joined the Panoramio community yet, try it out and don’t forget to participate in our monthly contest. To enter your photo, click on “Submit to the contest” and choose a category. Good luck and we can’t wait to see your photos!

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

The Winners!

Wow! We had 225 votes and the winning photo beat out second place by the skin of it's nose!! Josh and I recounted two times. Congratulations to our winning photo who has won a 30 min photo shoot, cd of images and an album:
Little Miss Sophia! Is she cute or what?!

And our random voting winner, who has also won a 30 min photo shoot, cd of images and an album goes a beautiful family I photographed back in 2008:
The Greenes (To Africa with Love). I'm so excited to get to photograph your family again!
Here's an image from a shoot of theirs a while back, just for fun! :)


Are you dying to know which photo was 2nd place? It was the oh so adorable little Mr. Elijah!


Thank you to everyone for voting! I can guarantee I will be doing this again next January! Maybe I'll come up with another contest or two in 2010. I really enjoyed it.

A Contest!

Hi Everyone! SO, I've never held a contest before! And I'm really excited to do one! I figure it's a new decade and it's time to do something new and fun with my business. I have another fun idea up my sleeve too, but I need to stew on it a big longer before posting anything about it. :) I also want to credit my fabulous friend Beth for the inspiration to do a contest!

Below you will find one photo from every photo shoot or wedding I did this year. 68 sessions! Wow! No wonder I crashed so hard this winter. Especially since raising two beautiful children is my full time job. But that's why I love my photography so much. I'm able to occasionally get away for an hour and be creative and then have some evenings of editing after the kids go to bed. Josh will hang out with me while I edit which makes it even sweeter.

So this is how the contest will work... like I said, below I've posted one photo from every portrait session or wedding that I shot in 2009. There are so many beautiful faces! Your job is to vote on your favorite photo by leaving a comment below. Click on "comment" and leave me your name, email, and then which photo you are voting for. Each photo has a number ABOVE it, so be sure to put the photo's # in the comment box.

Who wins? What do they win?... the photo that receives the most votes will win a mini photo session (30 min shoot), with the cd of high res images! PLUS, this is where it gets even sweeter, (I feel like I should be holding a skinny microphone right now and have a model in a shiny dress about to reveal this for you) I will be giving that winner a beautiful 5x5 album, like the one shown here in my last blog post) displaying the photos from your winning session and the winner will get to choose their album fabric cover too! Ooooo! :) I'm excited already, are you? BUT WAIT, it gets even sweeter! (Now I sound like a tv infomercial) I will also choose a random winner from all of the voters who left comments (using random.org), and they will also win a free mini photo shoot, cd of images and album! So it's extra important to leave your correct name and email so I can contact you if you win.

Important info... You may only vote on ONE image. If you happen to be in one of the images below, by all means vote for your own photo and get all of your friends, facebook friends, and family to vote for you too! If you booked multiple photo shoots throughout the year and have more than one image up here, any votes you get on your images will count toward your total vote.

Voting will end on Tuesday, January 19th at midnight (the day after the holiday weekend). Winner's sessions will be photographed in the Portland, Oregon area and must be redeemed before April 1, 2010. If a winner lives too far away and cannot redeem their session they may give it away as a gift to someone they know who could use it before April 1st.

These photos start back at January 2009 and make their way to December 2009. Happy viewing and Happy Voting! :)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

68.