Capture Rochester News

ALERT: The Books Are Here!

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:43:09 -0400

This is the moment we've all been waiting for. The Capture Rochester books are printed, bound, boxed, sealed and ready to be opened at the release party. We're so excited about it we decided to pop open a box and take a couple sneak peek photo to whet your whistle and get you excited for the release party (see below). That's it. See you at the release party on Saturday!

ALERT: The Cover, Revealed!

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:06:41 -0400

After adding up all the votes and looking through thousands upon thousands of photos, we are ready to reveal the cover! Congratulations Matthias Boettrich for taking the shot that will be featured on the cover. You can find the cover on the Capture Rochester main page. We're really excited about it. Thanks Matthias! We are very glad you submitted it. Remember to RSVP to the party, order your copy of the book and share your coupons with your friends.

ALERT: Party Details and Some Other Stuff

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 21:10:48 -0400

The party details have been hammered out. The Capture Rochester release party will surely be the coolest book release party Rochester has ever seen. Everyone is welcome. Bring your friends, family and camera! It's going to be a great time for the community to come together to celebrate the unveiling of the Capture Rochester book. It will be the first time anyone sees which photos made the book so it's sure to be an exciting time. If you already ordered the book and selected "pickup at the newspaper" as your shipping option, you can pick it up at the release party instead. Just bring your confirmation email. What: Capture Rochester Release Party When: Saturday, October 25th, starting at 12:00 PM. Where: George Eastman House, 900 East Ave., Rochester, NY 14607. Be sure to visit the RSVP page and let us know you're coming. Invite everyone you know! We hope to see you all there! Another thing: We're sure you noticed we passed the 1.5 million vote mark. Wow!!! Thanks to everyone who voted during Vote Week. 1.5 million votes is truly an amazing feat! One more thing... we're giving away coupons for the book. Actually, we're letting you give them away to your friends and family. It's kind of a way to reward you for being on the "inside." That way, your friends and family will feel they are on the "inside" too! Visit your profile page and send coupons to everyone you know! Share leaders are shown on the people page. Alright that's it. See you at the release party!

ALERT: The Last Days

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:23:25 -0400

Vote Week is almost over. Before it ends we need to tell you a few small things. First, you folks have placed well over a million votes for Capture Rochester photos!!! Hooray! What an incredible feat! Thanks to everyone for voting like crazy the last few days. We have a good number of "power voters" who've voted for 100% of photos. Wow! To motivate the rest of you in the last couple days, we're going to put out a free book challenge. We will give away one free book to one user, picked at random from users who have voted for at least 30%. So check your vote graph and get voting! Second, we are going to throw a release party for the book! It's going to be a great way to meet folks from Capture Rochester and rub elbows with fellow photographers. Be sure to check back next week to get the skinny on all of the details. We'll also put up an RSVP page for everyone. It's going to be one happening party! Mark your calendars for Saturday, October 25th, 12pm at the George Eastman House. More details next week. Finally, we want to be sure everyone knows Saturday (September 6th) is the last day to take advantage of the contributor discount on the book/dvd. If you uploaded a photo, or voted for at least 150 photos, we gave you a contributor discount worth $5 off on as many copies as you'd like. That discount expires Saturday. So if you want to get the book at a huge savings, now is the time (like for you really early Christmas shoppers). You can find your coupon at the top of your profile page in the yellow bar, under the navigation bar. Thanks again for a hugely successful Vote Week. Now let's go out in with a bang! Vote like mad for a couple more days!

ALERT: A Few Important Things

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:53:58 -0400

Hey folks! We have a few housecleaning items everyone needs to be aware of so we thought we'd wrap them all up in one giant alert. First, do you realize there's less than a week left to submit photos?!? That's not long at all! We had a great response to the Fall, Winter and Spring challenges (which was a way to fill in some of the gaps from other seasons), but now it's time you upload your last few great shots of Rochester (especially things you haven't seen uploaded yet). Once the counter in the top right reaches zero, submissions will close and Vote Week will begin. Vote Week is pretty self-explanatory. It's a week where everyone needs to garner all the support they can for their photos. It's a week to camp out on your computer in front of Capture Rochester and try to get your vote percentage graph (on your user profile page) up to 100%! The vote total is in the million range so it's going to be a mad dash to the finish! Before the counter reaches zero and Vote Week begins, we need everyone to shore up their captions. Remember, these photos will be put in a hard-bound fine-art book. It's going to sit on coffee-tables all over the place. We're going to try to use captions "as-is" for the most part, but if your photo has a caption that just doesn't make sense, or doesn't really describe the photo, or is 500 words long, or has a bunch of errors in it... well we might just have to skip it or edit it.. and we really don't want to do that. Bottom line: take a look at your captions and whip them into book-form shape! (To edit a caption click the "edit info" button on the photo's page.) Speaking of the book, the end of Vote Week also marks the end of the contributor discount on the book. If you've submitted a photo or voted for more than 150 photos, we gave you a coupon code worth $5 off every book you order. Be sure to head to the order page and click the "buy it now" button before the chance to save is gone. Now upload your best shots before it's too late!

ALERT: Fall, Winter and Spring Results

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:26:34 -0400

The results for the fall, winter and spring challenges are in! Almost 1,500 photos were submitted in all, which is absolutely amazing. Plus, the shots are so beautiful... it was difficult to not pick everything. Rochester has some beautiful scenery across all four seasons, and amazing photographers to capture it. When you have a minute, check out the fall, winter and spring challenge results. You will love all of the photos. We sure did. Thanks to everyone that submitted their shots.

Spring Results

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:21:36 -0400

When spring rolls around ducklings are born. We love ducklings. Don't you? Here's the best spring photos submitted. Go vote for them -- not just the ducks either.

Winter Results

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:12:43 -0400

Winter is popular, apparently. Almost 600 photos submitted. Nice job everyone. Here's our faves. Go vote for them!

Fall Results

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:46:18 -0400

We asked for fall shots and everyone delivered. More than 350 photos were submitted to the fall challenge. Here's the ones we think are the best. Go vote for them and help shape the book!

ALERT: Three Challenges: Fall, Winter and Spring

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 10:57:23 -0400

Capture Rochester launched several weeks ago, which means most folks have been uploading photos they've been taking over the summer. That's awesome, of course, but we'd love to see a little more from the other seasons. What does Rochester look like in the fall? How about winter and early spring? We're creating three new challenges: Winter, Fall and Spring. Post photos you've taken over the last year from winter, fall and spring into their respective challenge. This set of challenges ends August 13th (it's a short one so hurry). When you upload photos, you'll see a spot to enter photos for Winter, Fall or Spring at the bottom. To enter a photo you've already uploaded, go to your photo's edit page and enter it at the bottom of the page. To get to the edit page, click on the "Edit Photo" button on your photo's normal view. At the end of these challenges (August 13th), we'll feature our favorites from each season. Getting featured is good because it means your photo will get more views, and thus, more votes. So upload anything you've got that shows Rochester in winter, fall or spring!

Upgrades and Oopsies

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:08:31 -0400

Due to a few significant upgrades to the site (the biggest of which equates to a huge speed increase while voting), we've had some users report oddities in the vote percentage graph found on your user profile page. This news item is to inform you the vote percentage graph was erroneously reporting low vote percentage numbers for a short time, but the reporting is now fixed. No votes were lost or changed, just the count of percentages was off. We hope the speed boost is worth your trouble. Sorry for the counting error... math can sure be hard sometimes! Now go vote. It's speedy!

Results: Festivals and Events

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:28:15 -0400

Almost 400 photos were submitted to this challenge. Here's our faves. Go vote for 'em and help shape the book!

500,000th Vote Cast

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:03:38 -0400

We destroyed the 500,000th mark and are well on our way to 600,000! Since posting the 500,000th vote challenge, voting nearly doubled in pace. The 500,000th vote was cast by Rich Engelbrecht on this cute dog shot. Congrats Rich! Your votes are helping to shape the book. Everyone go say thanks to Rich by voting on his photos!

Mini-Challenge: Half-Million Votes

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:13:42 -0400

Voting is important. It determines the content of the book to a large degree. Not only that, it's fun! We know you agree because you've voted almost 500,000 times! Wow! At this stage in the game, there are a ton of photos to vote for, so get out there and vote like mad. We should reach the half-million vote mark in the next day or two. If you're the lucky voter, we'll give you some props (which leads to more votes for your photos). So go go go! Vote vote vote!

Challenge: Festivals and Events

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:43:35 -0400

Summer is in full swing now. You know what we love about summer? Festivals, parades and celebrations. Did everyone have a good Fourth of July? Did you take pictures? Wanna post them as part of a challenge? Hooray! We're calling this challenge Festivals and Events, so go ahead and post any kind of celebration shot -- not just from the Fourth. We're going to open this challenge up for a couple weeks so you can go out there and capture all of the unique summer events happening around the Rochester area. Use our handy Events Calendar to find some great things happening in the next couple weeks. This challenge ends July 21st. When you upload photos, you'll see a spot to enter photos for this challenge at the bottom. To enter a photo you've already uploaded, go to your photo's edit page and enter it at the bottom of the page. To get to the edit page, click on the "Edit Photo" button on your photo's normal view. At the end of the challenge (July 21st), we'll feature our favorites. Getting featured is good because it means your photo will get more views, and thus, more votes. So get out there and take pictures of local flare in these great community events!

ALERT: Sample Pages

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:22:50 -0400

Hey everyone! We decided to generate a few sample pages of the book so you can get a feel for what it will look like. It's just a sample, so don't get too excited if your photo is included here. There's lots of voting left so it's possible none of these photos will make the book. The style isn't set in stone either, so don't get too glued to it. Give it a look if you want, or hop on over to the buy page and grab your copy before you forget. Here's the link to the sample pages: Capture Rochester Sample Pages (PDF ~ 900k)

200,000th Vote Cast

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:04:18 -0400

We blew past 200,000 votes yesterday. Voting was happening at a maddening pace later on in the day (more than 100 votes per minute)... and that's when Brenda Neville placed the 200,000th vote for a photo of a bird. Way to go Brenda! Your votes are helping to shape the book. Everyone go say thanks to Brenda by voting on her photos!

Mini-Challenge: 200,000 Votes!

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:00:41 -0400

Everyone is voting like mad! In the first couple weeks of the contest, you folks voted more than 175,000 times. Wow! At the current pace, someone will likely cast the 200,000th vote today. Whoever casts that vote will be featured in a news post. Now go vote vote vote!

Green Stuff

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:43:11 -0400

What a great bunch of green stuff you folks submitted. We received more than 250 photo submissions! That's a lot of photos to look through. Here's our favorites, although really we could have featured a lot more. Go check out a few of these photos and vote give them your vote!

ALERT: Challenge: Green Things

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:44:02 -0400

Green is a fun color. It's the color of life. It's the color that surrounds us in nature. We could probably say a hundred things about green. We love it! So let's have a photo challenge for the color green. Get out there and shoot green things. Plants, frogs, limes... whatever. When you upload photos, you'll see a spot to enter photos for this challenge at the bottom. To enter a photo you've already uploaded, go to your photo's edit page and enter it at the bottom of the page. To get to the edit page, click on the "Edit Photo" button on your photo's normal view. At the end of the challenge (Monday, June 9th), we'll feature our favorites. Getting featured is good because it means your photo will get more views, and thus, more votes. So get out there and shoot some green things!