The month of July marks a special time of celebration in the United States, so we thought it would be fun to add to the festivities by launching a special series of digital photo contests.  Starting in July, we will launch the first weekly contest using a theme of scenic photos.  The competition is open for all digital photo enthusiasts, with details available with each week’s prize posting.

As the weeks progress, the top three winners from each weekly contest will automatically be entered into the monthly competition, to receive more prizes.  Since the monthly prize winners are selected from the weekly competitors, this means that you have a chance to win another prize without any extra effort!  If nobody enters one or more of the weekly contests, chances improve for anyone who participates to win a monthly prize as well.  The July monthly prize offering will be awarded to winners chosen from first, second, and third place weekly picks.  Prizes offered at the monthly level include the following:

First Place – 3 free digital photo treatments of your choice, made from your own photos, or you can use your prize credits toward one of our own creations posted on our site.  You can choose from a digital plaque, award, matted photo, or calendar page creation from your pictures.

Second Place – 2 free digital photo treatments of your choice, made from your photos, selected from the product categories mentioned above.

Third Place – 1 free digital photo treatment of your choice from one of our digital creation categories.

If there are no participants in the weekly contests, no weekly or monthly prizes will be awarded.  Winners can choose to have prizes made from winning weekly entries, or provide new pictures for us to work with.  Winners will be notified by email, and given prize credits for monthly winnings to be redeemed within 30 days of prize notification. 

Unredeemed prize credits will be void after 30 days.  Your finished creations may be showcased by being posted on our site.  Give your photos the highlighting they deserve by entering them in our contests. 

When we receive regular monthly participation in our contests, the top 3 winners of monthly prizes will be automatically entered in our yearly prize competition levels.  Details of potential yearly contest prizes will be posted in an article describing our yearly contest rewards.  If we do not have regular monthly winners, there will be no annual prizes awarded.  You have nothing to lose, so cash in on the fun, and make your digital photos look like a million.

Beginning in July 2009, we will start the first set of weekly photo contests which have the potential of rolling forward into monthly and even yearly winnings for those who wish to participate.  When people submit their photos into the contest on a weekly basis, the top three winners will receive a weekly award for best submissions.  From this group of top three winners each week, we will automatically enter them for monthly prize eligibility. 

When we have a year’s worth of monthly winners, we will take the top three monthly winners and automatically qualify them for prizes established for the top three best photos of the year.  In the beginning stages of our contest plans, we will need to get the word out and wait for participation to build.  During the weeks and months when we get no entries, the prize levels will not be awarded for those periods.  This makes winning much easier for people who discover us first, and get busy participating before the crowds find out about our offers.

Once the real challenge begins, it will still be possible for contestants to win multiple times during any given month, and to continue to receive weekly and monthly prizes throughout the year.  The more weekly wins a person has, the more chances they have to win the monthly prizes and prizes slated for the yearly level.  While there is a lot for people to get acquainted with about our lower level contests, we are not going to fill in the details of our yearly prizes, but they will be greater than what we offer at the monthly levels when they start to kick in.

To help keep things fair among all our participants, we may need to look at making some adjustments to the way our contests are structured from time to time.  For example, we may adjust our criteria or create different submission categories to level the playing field for more people to have chances to win.  We reserve the right to change criteria, or disqualify certain entries due to things like inappropriate material, improper submissions, or other circumstances we have yet to experience.  Our contests are being created to showcase the talents of our loyal visitors, and give people a chance to see what we can do to raise the bar for their digital photos.

Summer showed up quickly from the South this week, punching up the heat index like a trip to the sauna.  In this inspiration, I got busy putting together some cool images to soothe my mind from the scorching temperatures.  The first image is a July calendar page centered on one of my favorite eateries in town, and I hope they will appreciate the advertising opportunity this showcase provides.  This Jack Stack location is on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City.  Everyone in my circles would enjoy a chance to kick off the summer by wrapping their lips around some of the enticing barbecue from any one of the available locations. 

Jack Stack barbeque helps put KC on the map.

Fortunately, I live in close proximity to three of these restaurants that provide a nice variety of decor, and consistently good food.  Though I cannot speak for their entire menu, I might be able to some day if I can ever get tired of eating my favorite sandwiches there.  Judge for yourself if this picture has enough bull in it for you.  I was personally grateful when this particular location replaced the KC Masterpiece restaurant that preceded the remake into another Jack Stack.

The second item is a matted photo of a small church I passed on one of my walks around the Brookside area, near the Plaza.  The picture captured my attention because of the lighted clouds in the background of the roof and the tower.  I thought the clouds made a nice contrast to the lower lighting of the building and surrounding grounds.  Could this have been a little “howdy” from above?  Maybe.

A nice little church deserves a good matte.

This week’s digital plaque uses an emerald green and some additional accents to bring out a different feeling for this composition than some of the other kinds of metallic based themes.  The tree photo was taken in the back yard of a home near a walking path around a local golf course in Overland Park, Kansas.  The image caught my eye not only for its beautiful tree blooms, but also for the carefully manicured shape of this tree provided by the property owners.  The white tree flowers and the white picket fence are an almost idyllic image of the American dream home.  I hope it is as nice to live there as it looks.  Certainly the owners are working hard to make it look that way.

Is this the American dream?

My last piece is a sample award that one might expect to see as a third prize treatment in our upcoming weekly photo contest competition.  Notice how the award not only makes a rich prize for the right winner to cherish, it is specially created to reflect the attributes of the photo associated with the presentation.  This photo was another picture taken at Brush Creek on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, MO.  If you are wondering why so many recent pictures of the Plaza area have been showing up lately in these blog entries, it is because I have so many nice scenes to share, so why not?  There just might be more to come.

Do you think you can win a nice a award like this? You have to try to find out.

If you would like to use any of my images for yourself, please donate for each one you download.  If you want me to go to work on any of your photos to create some eye-popping digitally matted photos, calendars, awards, or plaques, send me an email at jdir@bhotechnologists.com to let me know what you have in mind.  Please do not attach photos to your emails.  Let the summer begin.

Beginning in July, we will be introducing a new approach to our photo contests.  The idea is to offer you a chance to win prizes at weekly, monthly, and even yearly levels.  This competition is too big for one posting, so be sure to check out the details of our upcoming monthly and yearly contests as well.

During our first week, beginning July 5, we will sponsor a scenery photo contest for digital photo enthusiasts.  Anyone can participate by entering one photo of their favorite local sightseeing hangout.  Photos need to be in .JPG format, no larger than 4mb and named using a unique value to avoid being overwritten by other participants. Upload your entry to:

http://digitalphotoframetemplates.biz/Jamal/uploadmain.php

After your photo has been uploaded to the above location, send an email to jdir@bhotechnologists.com to provide details about the file name of your photo, your photo location and composition, and your desire to enter it in our contest.  PLEASE DO NOT attempt to enter by attaching photos to your email messages.  From the entries we receive, we will select a first, second, and third place winner. For the week ending 7/11/09.  Winning contestants will be notified by email, and their prizes posted on the site for download. 

Weekly prizes will be digital awards acknowledging the winners, including their name, winning week, and a copy of their winning photograph incorporated into the award.  See below for a sample award, which will vary depending on the weekly contest theme.

A sample of the many different weekly prize awards possible.

In addition to the digital awards for weekly winners, we will automatically enter the top 3 winners into our monthly contest.  See the upcoming monthly contest post for details about monthly prizes.  On Saturdays we will post awards for the week, and announce the theme for the coming week’s contest. 

We reserve the right to deny entries for inappropriate material or other disqualifying criteria.  Improve your chances to win by entering each week. Do you have what it takes to be one of our winning participants? Get started today and find out!

Starting off the line up for this week is the final June 2009 digital calendar page offering before we begin presenting July pages.  This design was spawned from one of my favorite spots in Overland Park, Kansas.  This shot of the happy little girl statue makes a nice summer calendar composition.  These calendars look great in a digital picture frame or as a screen wallpaper. 

Get in on June before it is gone.

A friend of mine remarked that he does not like to keep track of too many calendars, so he did not want his pictures made into this kind of beautiful calendar page.  All right Mr. Utility, save your picture money for something else, and I will enjoy some of my own pictures this way.

The second item on this week’s boat ride is a nice screen wallpaper or digitally matted photo treatment of a picture I took at Brush Creek on the Plaza in Kansas City, MO.  My wife said this composition looked like the Earth springing a leak.  Maybe it has sprung a leak from all the rain we have been having this year.  This is just one of many digital matting techniques available from us for your photographic enjoyment.

Sometimes pictures are more fun with the right matting and effects.

My third piece is something from the digital plaque revelation realms that make me reflect on how much time I spent looking up at lofty corporate heights and wondering why I was not seeming to reach them.  This plaque represents how often we are told about that upward mobility which never quite seems to arrive.  Oh well, at least the clouds are pretty up there.

Limitation or inspiration; you decide.

The last offering for the week is a rarely talked about award which understandably few people ever have a chance to receive.  For those who qualify for this digital award honor, you now have an excuse you can use for why people seem uninterested in staying at your house for long.  If you can make a rooster duck his head, you may need to think about using some Fabreeze.

Some awards might be rare for a reason.

As one of our readers, perhaps you have not yet discovered that if you would like to use any of the offerings you find on this site, just donate $3 to the buy page for each item you use.  This will keep the designs coming, and help us pay the bills for doing all the work. Send us an email if you want us to work with your photos, or create something special for you.  When you ask us questions, there is no obligation or charge for information.   Obviously, due to our low prices, we prefer not to talk over long distance unless you want to pick up the tab for that.  If you use our stuff without paying, you could find yourself becoming more radioactive with each day that passes.  Please do not cheat, it just is not worth it.

A Fathers Day tribute to the importance of dads.

Fathers Day is just around the corner, and for those who procrastinate to the last minute, you may already be out of luck to get your hands on one of our unique and classy presents for your dad; but there is always next year. For a generic treat, you can download one of the sample digital plaques we have worked up, and not go away empty handed.

If you want to use one of these lovely images, just donate your three bucks and download one of these pictures as a screen wallpaper or a digital photo frame image to sneak onto your dad’s picture frame. He will appreciate receiving something other than a man-bashing tirade or another tie for his Fathers Day surprise. It is good to be appreciated, even if it is only for one day out of the year.

Should the urge strike you to have us work up a creation for you, just send us an email to jdir@bhotechnologists.com with a specific idea of what you want, and we will try to squeeze it in for you. Isn’t that nice? We take this opportunity to wish all dads a wonderful Fathers Day this year.

Is your dad an award winner?

This week was so busy it took a bit to put together the favorite items worth sharing for this week.  My first offering is a photo and design that reveals a little known secret about how some plants adjust the color of their leaves.  If you look closely at the photo, it would appear that the tree is matching its leaf color to the exact same shade as the barely visible red traffic light color.  So maybe it is not as interesting as I thought, but I liked the idea myself.

How trees adjust their leaf colors...

Next up is this week’s calendar page design offering lots of rich color, and some important dates for this month.  Can you just imagine being able to give out your own beautiful promotional digital calendars with your own logo plastered on the front for all to see, and maybe a little advertising text to boot?  Yes, we can do that if you want.  The beauty of our service is that we can design a whole year’s worth of beautiful pages for only $36.  After that, you can send out as many electronic copies as you want.  How’s that for a nice cheap promotion idea?

Digital calendar designs make great and inexpensive promotional items.

This week’s digital award sample gives you a hint for what we have cooking next month in our new photo contest extravaganza.  We can make your photos award winning, and you can have the kudos to prove it.  The richness of this design will have everyone taking notice.

Digital awards provide a first rate image for recognition.

Closing out this week’s works, is a decorative digital plaque with yet another potentially famous quote from our favorite author and sage.  This elegant design could be an item you would cherish for years to come if you trend toward a cynical view of the world.  Oh well.

Digital plaques offer a whole new potential vista for merchandising.

The lead item for June release is this digital inspirational plaque that reminds us of the synergy between our creativity and God’s role in making it all work out as intended.  My wife used this as a screen wallpaper on her work PC for a time, and received some notice.

Digital plaques provide inspiration and pleasant decor

Next up is another slightly quirky digitally matted photo observation made about this spontaneous shot taken over Memorial Day weekend.  Looking up at the sky, I noticed the contrail from a high flying jet making this frame look like someone was lowering clouds on a string.  Since I often go around looking up rather than staring straight ahead, I sometimes get shots that do not result in bumping into things or falling into pools of water.

Who is holding the string?

Carrying the same photo forward into a digitally designed calendar page, I added another nice sky laden photo to create this airy and light result to help induce an appropriate amount of day dreaming at home or in the office.  It is also just the sort of image you need to cool you down on a hot June day.

Use this calendar page to get your mind in the clouds.

The last item for this week is a long overdue acknowledgement by King Pitt to a most loyal member of the Pitt Army.  This should be a good source of nostalgia for anyone who remembers the glory days of Pitt activities and the benevolence of our beloved King Pitt.  The digital award provides a design that will keep this milestone reminder fresh for a long time to come.  Are there any other ranking Pitts still out there?  Onward and upward to one and all as we lift our arms to Paula in an honorary salute.

A tribute to a long time friend

If you would like to use any of the offerings you find on this site, just donate $3 to the buy page for each item you use.  This will keep the designs coming, and help us pay the bills for doing all the work.  Send us an email if you want us to work with your photos, or create something special for you.  When you ask us questions, there is no obligation or charge for information.  All unique designs cost $3, so take advantage while the price is still too good to be true.  All our digital designs will help to make your photos look like a million.