Pixie Blog

Pixie 2011 Photo Of The Year

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 17:36:42 +0000

The job of choosing the best photos from the previous year has now become Pixie tradition (see previous years 2010 and 2009) and each year we trawl through tens of thousands of photos carefully longlisting, then shortlisting before finally selecting the top 50. We do our best to ensure variety in terms of subject, occasion, technique, uniqueness and quality, but ultimately, trying to eliminate photos from the shortlist of 250 photos down to just 50 is soul destroying as we have to loose so many great shots.

Well done to those that made the list, and sorry to those that didn't...

Photo Of The Year 2011

Congratulations to leimrod on being selected as the Photo Of The Year 2011. This shot is simply wonderful.

"Sucker Window" by leimrod

The Top 50 Photos of 2011

"I come in peace" by liamp

"Dung Fly with breakfast" by Mikka631

"Pug Dread" by cufa

"raise the liberty hall" by Aidan18

"Burn!" by MalachyKelly

"Bark !" by Tony aka LLED

"the flock" by Aidan18

"Outside" by Covey

"TV = 21" Softbox" by DaviDOS

"Temptation" by brianmcnamara

"IMG_3169_70_71_tonemapped" by keithjack

"flying high" by bumbleb

"Venice - Sleep walking to work" by Margaret Morrissey

"Glowsticks" by Falcon7012

"Smokin......" by pullandbang

"Octopus' Garden" by dakar

"Rebirth" by Fran

"Sowing the seeds ... " by Cagey75

"Sad" by Adrian

"fly2" by WimPeeters78

"Kiss me ..." by villafan

"My Multiple Worlds" by DangerMouse

"Lloyds" by ldnphotowalk

"Bloomin Buzzin.." by SusieQue

"Eye Contact Mono" by SusieQue

"big enough to cry " by aafke

"What Rain?" by DangerMouse

"Gorana003" by Angel

"Green Giant" by Mick H 51

"Hanging on" by Falcon7012

"Fly by Wire" by Adrian

"Smile for the camera" by MissusPandB

"SL 2" by JonJames

"morbid colourful arrangement" by nicolasreuland

"ISS over the 10th fairway - Ballykisteen" by Shane Murphy

"Daisy on Green" by Philip

"seeing myself in you" by artvaleri

"IMG_0077" by vulcan

"One day, all of this will be mine..." by trooney

"Bridging the gap" by shaz

"Sculpture" by swieler

"Northwall Walker" by seanky

"Wild Horses" by teegee

"The Angry Mob" by villafan

"Free" by Adrian

"Ascension" by Covey

"Pixie rouge" by HughC

"Monsoon" by TBSteve

"Baz" by pullandbang

Thanks to everyone who uploaded photos in 2011 and we are all really looking forward to seeing what 2012 brings!

Happy New Year everyeone!

They Don't See the Crack

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 00:19:44 +0000

In 2004 I brought my (French) partner on trip around Ireland in a bid to show off our beautiful country. I took many photos along the way, but one series in particular has become widely viewed here on Pixie.

The shots I took at the cliffs of Moher have shocked thousands of people as they captured the people literally risking their lives unnecessarily:

"Cliffs of Moher - Darwin Awards Candidate"

The description reads "Where is this woman going!?!"

A few minutes later, a man walked right out to the ledge and stood there seemingly unaware of the monster crack less than a meter away under his feet.

"They Don't See the CRACK"

Imagine my surprise then when tonight I noticed that another Pixie user had uploaded the very same photo taken 6 years later...

OMG - The ledge is GONE!!!!!!!

Thanks to gallftree for upload this new photo entitled "Quintessential Cliffs of Moher".

I wonder if anyone was standing on that ledge when it finally fell...

Irish Blog Awards 2011 Best Photo Blog Finalists

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 14:54:47 +0000

Huge congrats to the following finalists for Best Photo Blog 2011 (sponsored by Pixie!)

Pixie 2010 Photo of the Year

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 16:57:33 +0000

Following on from last year's Photo of the Year we have once again selected what we feel are the top 50 photos uploaded to Pixie in 2010. This year we also asked you to nominate your favourites and these votes have been taken into account.

The selection process this year has taken a lot longer than last year as the number of images upload has increased substantially. It's incredibly difficult to choose just 50, but somehow we've managed to do it!

Photo of the Year 2010

Congratulations to Adrian Sadlier for his photo "Evil at the Heart of Beauty" which wins the Pixie Photo of the Year 2010.

"Evil in the Heart of Beauty" by asadlier

The Top 50 Photos of 2010

In the order they were uploaded, here are the remaining top 50 photos of 2010. Well done to all those listed and really sorry to those who uploaded fantastic photos but didn't make the final cut.

"Christmas Day Paddle" by FajitasGTR

"Helpless" by liamp

"stoneybatter chipper" by harper

"Drop Circle" by teegee

"outer space " by Hazel

"Melissa Hayward093" by Angel

"NY sunset" by Shanemurphy

"IMG_0219" by vlastik

"india" by elponio

"Eyes Locked" by garymcgivney

"Vapourised Ver. 2" by Valentia

"Jelling it with the crowd" by SinisterDexter

"Left Behind" by carolinew

"hal·cy·on" by ancatdubh

"deck chairs" by verysnappy

"How will we get home Ma ?" by Mikmccarthy

"The Painted Hall - Greenwich, London" by henrystuart

"Mosaic and crowd" by oonat

"Subway_HK" by CabanSail

"Evening Sunset" by danieljordan13

"Walking on sunshine" by Falcon7012

""coulda been a contender"" by lechesolara

"Eye Ball" by Peadar

"Onwards and Upwards" by MickH51

"to infinity... and beyond" by trooney

"David Kelly" by thebaz

"Last chance off the island" by carolinew

"shadowy jo" by fernross

"Droplets" by SusieQue

"Giants Causeway" by MickH51

"Faye Skip The Light Fantastic" by bernarddunne

"Macro115" by WimPeeters78

"The pain of a protester" by PunkRock

"Barcelona FR2" by Falcon7012

"HC2" by Falcon7012

"ball in sand" by barbara

"up" by craanc

"Bubbles 2" by LLED

"Dressed in Red" by vanilla

"eclipse" by Aidan18

"Fireworks-1" by Falcon7012

"Kiss on a misty rainy evening" by redmum

"They used to burn us" by asadlier

"DSC_0055" by liamp

"Steve Ignorant (Crass)" by PunkRock

"Snowy Peak" by morrisseeee

"i11uminated" by Promac

"After Hours" by Covey

"Lunar eclipse 21/396" by TheSpaceBetween

Thanks to everyone for all your great photos over the last year and we really look forward to seeing what 2011 brings.

Happy New Year to all!

Boards Photo Book 2010

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 12:34:06 +0000

Boards Photo Book launches at the Dublin Camera Gallery on Lower Camden Street at 8pm on November 20, 2010.

Guest post by sNarah

The team and users from the Boards.ie Photography team are proud to announce the launch of the 3rd edition of the Boards Photo Book and wish the extend a warm welcome to all users on Pixie, as both communities are, and will always, be closely knit in together! The entire project is conducted online and organized by volunteers from the forum. The book showcases some of the finest photography work from both amateurs and professionals and will make a great Christmas present; as for each book sold, a charitable donation will be made to Santa Strike Force.

Santa Strike Force

This charity was launched by Tom Murphy, founder of Boards, and secretly buys presents for care centres and hospitals, so that children can enjoy the presents year-round. This year’s book is dedicated to Danny O’Brien and Derek Davis, 2 active users of the forum who sadly passed during the year. The book will be launched by Tom in the Dublin Camera Club gallery, 10 Lower Camden Street at 8 pm on November 20th. Many of the contributors and users of the photography forum will meet each other there. Remarkably, it will probably be the first time many of them will have met face to face – as all work behind the book happens entirely on the forum, which is an amazing feat!

The publication will be made available for purchase to the general public by Shakespeare Photobooks, a Waterford based company who have been selected this year for the printing process – an important change from previous editions to highlight the importance of using Irish-based services. A direct link will be made available www.boardsphotobook.wordpress.com to Shakespeare Photobooks for placing an order and there will be an opportunity to purchase individual prints from the book directly from the photographers if requested. The book will be priced at €42.35 and this price includes a €5 charitable donation to Santa Strike Force.

We herewith once more extend an invitation and warm welcome to all interested in attending the book launch. We hope to make the book a successful venture to ensure that Santa Strike Force can keep providing their fantastic service to institutions that, in these budgetary times, so much rely on donations from the public.

For any further inquiries, you can contact the team behind the book on boardsphotobook2010 {at} gmail.com

Pixie Is Moving

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 09:42:00 +0000

photo credit verysnappy

We didn't want to announce this until we had exact timelines in place, but I am really please to announce that Pixie is moving!!! YAY! :D

For the last three and a half years, Pixie has been hosted in Data Electronics, Dublin and today will be our last day there! Essentially we've decided to undertake the costly and mammoth task of physically moving all of our servers, storage, firewalls and switches! We spent months trying to figure out not only how we would move all of our kit, but also where we would move to. We visited, interviewed and got quotations from nearly every data center in the country...

One Company Stood Out

This company is going to work with us, not against us. This company understands the needs of companies like Pixie as is flexible enough to be able to provide us with exactly what we require. We've already been working with them for a couple of years and we trust them. I'd like to personally thank Michele Neylon, Paul Kelly and their team at Blacknight who have worked hard to provided us with a really flexible and cost effective package which we simply couldn't have obtained anywhere else.

Yes, we are moving to Blacknight's co-location facility in Interxion's custom built data center and we're doing it TONIGHT!

The Plan

The plan actually began last night... Unbeknown to the thousands of Pixie users who were busy upload and viewing photos at the time, we moved half of the Pixie servers, firewalls, switches etc. The painstaking process involved de-racking each piece of equipment: carefully removing power (each server has two power cables), network (each server has 5 network cables), the machine and it's rails without disturbing the remaining live machines. To get an idea of what I mean, imagine removing the 2rd, 4th and 5th server down in this photo:

We did all this all last night, and then packaged everything up, physically transported the kit and re- racked in the new data center.

Starting at 19:00 this evening (30th September 2010) we will start bringing the Pixie service down for the first time in nearly four years. The entire service has already been fully backed up and we will perform a last minute sync of all the storage and backups to ensure everything is 100%. All remaining live machines will be de-racked, packed up and transported to Interxion where it will be re-racked. Blacknight will do their magic and move our IP transit links from DEG to IX and in theory, we should be able to just switch everything back on. :)

In reality, there are going to be glitches and the reason we decided to start the move so early (19:00) is simply because we don't know what gotchas might lie ahead and if we have to work all night, so be it. We absolutely need to be back up and running by the following morning hence giving ourselves as much buffer time as possible.

This is a huge task that lies ahead of us tonight, so please bear with us and forgive the downtime which we *hope* will only be around 4-5 hours all going well. If anyone wants to wish us luck, don't be shy - we need it!

Marcus

Irish Blog Awards 2010 Best Photo Blog Finalists

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:00:17 +0000

Next Saturday (March 27 2010) is the eagerly anticipated Irish Blog Awards and this year the event is being held in Galway! Tickets are still on sale so head over and book now.

Pixie is sponsoring the Best Photo Blog category and there are five very deserving finalists whose blogs you should check out straight away!

Best of luck to all the finalists and see you on Saturday!

Print Auction for Haiti by Pixie Users

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:22:15 +0000

A group of Pixie users (started by Covey) have very kindly offered to donate proceeds from the sale of selected photographic prints to charities in aid of Haiti (eg. Covey's chosen charity). There are some amazing photos up for grabs and it would be great if you could help spread the word in order to maximise potential bids.

At the Forty Foot by Covey

All you have to do is leave a comment on the photo you like with a (reasonable) bid.

See the full selection of photos: http://pix.ie/explore/tag/printauctionforhaiti

If you would like to participate, please tag your photo(s) with printauctionforhaiti and edit the photo description to indicate what size print is being offered, which charity you have chosen along with any other terms and conditions you may have.

NOTE: Auctions are between photographer and their respective bidders and each photographer is responsible for their own auction, printing and fulfilment.

Pixie 2009 Photo of the Year

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 16:55:04 +0000

Following the success of our "Photo of the Day" initiative which we started in 2009, we decided to look back through all the photos uploaded during the year and choose one for the title of Pixie 2009 Photo of the Year!

With over 500,000 photos uploaded in 2009, choosing just one was a real challenge...

How Did We Choose?

Firstly we didn't actually look at half a million photos, instead we used the Pixie sorting algorithm which produces a real time view of the top (best) photos for a given period of time. People always ask us how this algorithm works and we always decline to say :). Let's just say it works!

We produced a list of the top 10,000 public photos uploaded during 2009 as determined by the community and presented these photos on a single web page as thumbnails (oh yes... it was a big page). The thumbnails were presented in random order and without any details of who took the shots. We then painstakingly scrolled down through the list and any photos which caught our eye were clicked and viewed large. An exclusion policy was used to eliminate photos that had been uploaded less than 500px in size, photos that had overbearing watermarks or photos that were of poor quality when viewed large. Using a special pixie account we then voted for photos that when viewed large were what we considered to be "truly outstanding". The list was narrowed to 658 photos...

Another page was created, this time showing only the 658 photos and at a size of 240px. 158 photos were eliminated on this pass. We now had our longlist of 500 photos. Still way too many...

The list was whittled down to 250 photos and the eliminations were getting really really difficult now with some of my personal favourites being lost on this pass. Another page was created, this time showing the remaining photos at a size 800px. More eliminations took place until we had our shortlist - just 50 photos remained.

Choosing the Winner.

We didn't choose the winner... you did. Yesterday we asked people to DM their nominations for Photo of the Year using Twitter and overwhelmingly, one photo kept popping up. That photo was "Under the Rain" by GilesK and it featured on our shortlist. We had absolutely no hesitation in agreeing with the majority that this was to be the Pixie Photo of the Year.

UPDATE: 25th May 2010

And then just recently we discovered that GilesK wasn't exactly the great photographer we were all led to believe. In fact, it's likely that none of the photos uploaded to his account were taken by him. This doesn't in any way take away from the beauty or quality of the photos themselves, they remain absoultely inspirational... As someone put it on Twitter, at least he had good taste!

Putting Things Right!

This now presents us with an opportunity to put two things right: Let's choose another photo, this time from a photographer who actually took the photo themselves... and since we removed a shot, there's room for another: the missing "gig shot"... Congratulations to PunkRock, your gig shot has been added to the 50 top photos of 2009 (see last image below).

Pixie 2009 Photo of the Year

We asked you to leave a comment below with your choice for the new winner and overwhelmingly you choose Dylan by Danny O'Brien (Valentia) RIP.

"Dylan" by Valentia

Not only is this a huge honour to Danny from his peers, it demonstrates the real strength and commitment of the Pixie community, something that was clearly lost on the previous winner.

As the founder of Pixie, I am very proud to give my support to this choice and my thoughts are summed up by this comment (below) from summerhead below:

"Many great images. I think the award should go to Valentia for "Dylan". It is a wonderful image with a great connection with the viewer. Valentia was so obviously respected and an inspirational figure and the antithesis of the tawdry deception that occurred with the original selection. Given his passing and the honesty and capture of something special I am not sure further voting is that helpful. Just my thoughts."

Congratulations Danny!

The 50 Most Outstanding Photos in 2009

It breaks my heart to know that there are photos which deserve to be mentioned here, but with only 50 spots it was impossible to list them all. If one of your photos is not listed here, then I am truly sorry, it probably should have been... Here is the final list:

"boys!!" by elponio

"no future" by Hazel

"The-Panic" by TownieLee

"I dream in technicolour..." by jodonnell

"St Patricks Parade-72" by NMIPhoto

"SPF09-31" by DarrenG

"Outcast" by keithjack

"IMG_0001 double daff" by DamienAPicasso

"Amiensstreet" by Wisdo

"Odie" by jhenryexp

"Chill Out" by magdaluka

"4_mg8252" by gabsriel

"red arrows 3" by adrianmegahey

"When it's raining outside " by MorningTea

"The Skelligs v2.0" by Valentia

"Gannet Colony " by LifeByTheDrop

"DSC07925" by liamp

"luke danniells usa breakdancers" by lukedanniells

"Puppy Love" by shortars

"poulnabrone_clare" by latchiko

"BMX'ing @ Poleberry" by FajitasGTR

"Baloon Man" by brownie

"Carlow Tree" by LifeByTheDrop

"Ballymacad Hounds" by keithjack

"cow mouse and shoe shoes 3" by katiemaloe

"Got to love those ears" by kefln

"alone ..." by LukT

"Small Bee - Hylaeus Male" by oshead

"220809" by ronanpalliser

"John 3-7" by Valentia

"Lion, London Zoo" by henrystuart

"New York-4" by spike

"090909090909" by dakar

"mist" by dakar

"REFLECTION" by IRELANDSOWN

"Lanc_Frei_800" by CabanSail

"The Nore at Mount Juliet - Early Morning" by mountjuliet

"Is there time to say a prayer" by dphotography

"IMG_3838" by hannedeneut

"mother and child" by liamp

"Imaginary Friend" by henrystuart

"Mahon Falls" by MddiEurphy

"cctv" by Hazel

"Phoenix Park Dublin10" by jennyrusks

"O'Donavan Rossa Bridge" by MickH51

"Loughness Seahorse Swan Monster" by LifeByTheDrop

"gherkin" by henrystuart

"Light Fighters" by TheSpaceBetween

"Restarts 25600 ISO" by punkrock

From all of us at Pixie - Happy New Year to all!

Pixie Wins Best Social Networking and Community Site at Golden Spiders

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:57:41 +0000

The photos have finally arrived in our inbox from the Golden Spiders and it's time for a blog post!

Clare Dillon (Microsoft) and Marcus Mac Innes (Pixie)

We are absolutely delighted to announce that on Thursday last Pixie won Best Social Networking and Community Website award at the Irish Golden Spiders Awards in Dublin. You may recall we also won this same award in 2007 (you can't win two years in a row) but the big difference for us this year is that this time around it was the public who voted us to win.

I would just like to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to vote for us this year. Your votes really do count and we are so proud to have helped create the community that is Pixie!

Finally I'd like to thank our category sponsor Microsoft and the beautiful Clare Dillon (Developer and Platform Group Lead) pictured above who presented the award.

Pixie Lott on Pixie

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:35:38 +0000

@DarraghDoyle does it again with a little help from @ericlalor

Check out his latest twitpix:

Hello Pix.ie I'm Pixie!

Thanks Darragh!

David LaChapelle Exhibition and Photography Workshop

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:51:38 +0000

On Thursday 17th September 2009 the Sebastian Guinness Gallery, in association with Canon, Treasury Holdings and Fred Torres Collaborations, will launch an exhibition titled ‘American Jesus’ showcasing the photographic works by one of the world’s most respected contemporary photographers, David Lachapelle.

Exhibition

Lachapelle, a fine art photographer and director, is renowned for his iconic pop and celebrity images that for over the past two decades have continuously graced the pages of the leading fashion and entertainment magazines such as Vanity Fair, The Face, Rolling Stone, Vogue and Interview. Mixing glamour with surreal and comic fantasy, Lachapelle has created many memorable and striking images of luminaries such as Elizabeth Taylor, Pamela Anderson, Madonna, Elton John, Tupac Shakur and Britney Spears. His directing credits include music videos for artists such as Moby, Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Lopez.

Lachapelle’s stage work includes Elton John’s The Red Piano concert which recently ended a five year run at Ceaser’s Palace in Las Vegas and which will be staged at Dublin’s 02 for one night on October 30th.

Due to the extensive images on exhibit, the David Lachapelle ‘American Jesus’ exhibition will be located at Connaught House, 1 Burlington Road, Dublin 4.

This exhibition will be open to the public from the 19th September – 31st October, Tuesday to Saturday 11am to 6pm. More info here: http://www.sebastianguinnessgallery.com

David LaChapelle Workshop - 20 Tickets Available to Pixie Members

How would you like to spend the day with David Lachapelle?

Thanks to Canon you can... the first 20 people to comment below with the words: "Thanks Canon (and Pixie) - I want a ticket for the workshop" along with your full name for the guest list will get one!

This private workshop is on next Friday 18th September between 2.15pm – 5pm and the running order is as follows:

2.15pm – Registration opens
2.45pm – Presentation by David LaChapelle on his work and techniques
3.45pm – Q&A
4.15pm – Free to look at the exhibition and Canon Zone
5pm – Close

The workshop event is being held in Treasury Holdings, Connaught House, 1 Burlington Road, Dublin 4 - http://www.treasuryholdings.com/contactus.aspx. The building is identifiable by the large statue of Maebh of Connacht outside.

This event is strictly by invite only and I will need to full name on the comment below to add you to the list.

Once again thanks Canon and David!

TwitPix - Share Photos on Twitter via Pixie

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:34:26 +0000

Twitter Integration Comes to Pixie!

Now you can share your photos on Twitter directly from your mobile phone! All you have to do authorise Pixie to send tweets, create an email contact ("TwitPix") on your mobile using the special email address provided during the setup process and you are good to go!

Then take a photo, email to TwitPix and we'll do the rest!

Sending is Simple

All Twitter photos we receive are automatically add to the TwitPix group so if you want to see what's happening right now, visit http://pix.ie/group/twitpix.

Thanks to everyone who beta tested the service and gave valuable feedback over the last few weeks, we couldn't have done without you!

Tweet From Pixie

Logged in users will also now notice a new "Tweet" button on photos and albums. Click Tweet to post to message and URL Twitter! It couldn't be simpler.

Setup TwitPix Now

Simply visit http://pix.ie/services/twitter/setup and Get Tweeting!

Photo Competitions - Winning the Ruby Card Prize

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:15:48 +0000

Here at Pixie we've been host to lots of great photo competitions! Some competitions are long running like the Guinness Storehouse monthly photo competition, some are about crowdsourcing photos from an event or festival and some are designed just to find a single great photo!

Introducing the Ruby Card Photo Competition

Due to launch in early September, Ruby Card is the new Irish prepaid credit card and in order to give the new card a fantastic look, Ruby Card are running a photo competition here on Pixie to find a single brilliant photo of Ireland to feature on the front of their card.

Win €2,500

Offering a whopping €2,500 as prize money, Ruby Card are inviting people to submit their best photos taken of counties in the Republic of Ireland. One photo will be chosen, the winning county will be featured and the lucky winner will get their very own Ruby Card loaded with €2,500 to spend!

The competition has already been running for a week or so and we’ve had lots of photos entered, but there a couple of points worth thinking about when submitting photos for this competition.

Some Tips!

Whenever a photo is to be used for a certain purpose, it’s important that you think about how it will be used. Just like stock photography which is more often than not about what areas of space are available within the photo to position the marketing message than simply how stunning the photo is, this competition is going to impose certain criteria on the winning photo.

Starting with the obvious, the Ruby Card is landscape and has an aspect ratio of approximately 8:5. Now that’s not to say that a square or portrait photo will not be chosen, but I bet a landscape photo whose proportions loosely fit the Ruby Card shape will have way more chance of being shortlisted and ultimately selected as the winner...

Next up is layout and obstructions. You can’t get away from the fact that the credit card has 4 major obstructions:

The SIM chip
The Ruby Card logo
The hologram / MasterCard logo
The card number and card holder’s details

If your photo still looks great even after those obstructions have been overlaid, I’d be very excited... The winner could be YOU!!! :D

Find out more and enter your photos in Ruby Card Photo Competition on Pixie now!

Street Performance World Championship Dublin

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:19:45 +0000

Are you in Dublin this weekend? Then check this out!

The Street Performance World Championship festival is on again this weekend in Dublin's Merrion square (until Sunday 21st June) and Pixie is proudly hosting the official SPWC photo sharing group.

There's a photo competition running and thanks to Canon there are some great prizes on offer!

Visit http://pix.ie/group/spwc to view or upload your photos!

Last weekend in Cork

Here are just a few photos from the festival in Cork last weekend:

photo by ronancatapult

photo by dan-spwc

photo by wyer

Upload Your Photos

To upload your photos just visit http://pix.ie/group/spwc

photo by darraghdoyle

See you there!

The Volvo Ocean Race is Coming to Galway

Mon, 18 May 2009 21:38:19 +0000

The Volvo Ocean Race is coming to Ireland this weekend and to celebrate, Galway is hosting a 15-day festival of sailing, music, culture and craic and all for free! Highlights include free concerts, street performance, an attempt to break the world record for Céilí dancing, a Red Arrows air display, markets, interactive exhibits including a simulator and the opportunity to be winched to the top of the mast of a Volvo Open 70 racing boat.

Photo Competition

And a festival wouldn’t be a festival without teaming up with Pixie to host their photo competition... Sponsored by LookWest.ie, the Galway Volvo Ocean Race is asking everyone to upload their photos to the official photo sharing group.

...and of course we have some goodies:

The festival runs from the 23rd May to the 6th June and during that time there are a bunch of cool things happening. Firstly when the boats arrive from Boston USA, there will be huge reception to receive them in. The world’s media will be covering the arrival and Pixie have secured a couple of VIP passes (well 10 actually...) for Pixie members who’d like to get a better position to see the boats and take photos as they arrive.

AND two lucky photographers will get media passes to go out with the world’s media on the VIP media boat in order to photograph the boats as they arrive from Boston. Whooa!

What do you have to do to get on board...? Get blogging and spread the word of course!

If you are interested, blog, tweet let people know the festival is on, remind them to upload their photos, and then leave a comment below indicating when you'd be interested in coming down. We'll be making selections in the usual way, so sit tight and get ready for a great opportunity :)

Prizes

Prizes include 3 digital cameras with a total value of over €1,500! So don' forget to enter your festival photos.

Logistics:

May 23/24/25 – Boats arrive (exact date and time will be known closer to the time).
May 30 – In harbour racing day (did I mention we have 2 passes for the media boat on this day too?)
June 6 – The boat depart!

Design Contest to Improve on Bigger Huger Labs Profile Widget

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 08:21:00 +0000

Okay so the above template is a complete rip off of the original Big Huge Labs Profile Widget but who cares because this is just the first of many templates we plan to offer.

Do you think you could do better?

We are calling on the community to help us come up with a new design for Pixie widget which stands out from the crowd. If you think you've got what it takes to design a killer looking widget, then go for it! We will pick our favourite from those submitted and implement it as a template for users here on Pixie.

Isn't that like a design contest? You betcha!

Design guide

Dimensions: width:500px height:100px
Thumbnail photos are available in the following sizes:
- 100px x 66px
- 48px x 32px
Thumbnails may be cropped (rectangular or square only) to make them fit in your design.
Users must be able to specify text and background colours.
Template should contain transparent regions to allow background colour to show through.
You retain the copyright in your design, but you must grant us an appropriate license to use it...
Only original Photoshop .psd or Fireworks .png layered files will be accepted as a valid submissions.

...oh and the winner gets €50 :)

Pixie users can create their Bigger Huger Labs profile widget here: http://pix.ie/widgets/create (make sure you're logged in)

----------------------------------

UPDATE: I'm going to post the entries here:

Entry A - by Bohoe

Entry B - by Daniel Jordan

Entry C - by James Larkin

Entry D - by Dioptrovic

Entry E - by Julie Matkin

Entry F - by Pauleeee

Entry G - by Sully

Entry H - by bstone

St Patrick's Festival Photo Competition Winners Announced

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:03:46 +0000

Congratulations to Julie Matkin for winning the St Patrick's Festival photo competition and having her photo published in the Irish Times today!

Julie took first place in the competition and wins the Canon EOS 1000D digital SLR camera, Selphy ES3 photo printer, the photography training course, additional memory card and photo printing paper!

Click here to view all the photos from the 2009 St Patrick's Festival.

1st Prize

Today's Irish Times article by John Collins

2nd Prize
3rd Prize

Congratulations also to Soundbeans for winning second place and Challengemaster for taking third place!

The official announcement can be found here: http://pix.ie/group/stpatricksfestival/discuss/topic/photo-competition-winners-announced

Special thanks to Canon for their sponsorship!

Social Media talk at Search Marketing World 2009

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:36:19 +0000

I was invited to speak on the topic of "Social Media Marketing: Redefining the Customer" at Interactive Return's annual Search Marketing World conference yesterday. Feedback has been really excellent and everyone was wowed by the presentation itself. Rather than use Powerpoint, I used a new tool called Prezi which has been in private beta for the last couple of months but is due to launch next Monday April 6th. Prezi is a zooming "prezentation" authoring tool which allows you to be very creative about how to present material especially photos.

I was the third speaker and to be honest I had a tough act to follow after Will McInnes and Ciaran Norris who both delivered exceptionally insightful talks.

My talk introduced some great social media companies that are based here in Ireland and featured some of the work Pixie that has been involved with over the last few months:

View the presentation full screen here: http://prezi.com/22405/view

Guinness Storehouse Reveals 2008 Photo Competition Winner

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:55:24 +0000

The Guinness Storehouse have revealed the overall 2008 winner of the Share Your Experience photo competition!!!

Congratulations to Hazel Coonagh who picks up the €1,000 prize for her fantastic HDR photo:

"Pipes" by Hazel Coonagh

See more amazing photos from the competition here

The Share Your Experience photo competition is open to all Guinness Storehouse visitors and is run in association with Pixie.

If you are Pixie member and would like to have the opportunity to join us in the Storehouse to take photos on St Patrick's Day, just leave a comment over here to be added to the waiting list!