The Grand Prize winners from the 2010 Project Polar Bear Contest were recently announced at the San Diego Zoo. We were privileged to sponsor this event — and as in years past, we were absolutely amazed by what these teams of teens accomplished.

Competing with teams from across the US, 4 finalists were announced last month: Energy Angels from Southwestern Pennsylvania, AHS Zoo School from North Carolina, Care Bears from Ohio and Earth Club from Wisconsin. The overall results from the contest garnered some pretty spectacular statistics — they collectively reduced carbon emissions by over 30 million pounds with projects ranging from conducting energy audits and distributing energy-saving CFL light bulbs to fundraising and educational outreach.

The winning team, Energy Angels, is an energetic threesome: Stephanie Mandella, Jennifer Urban and Alexandra Ruhl. These 14-year-olds were tireless during the three-month-long contest, educating their community about the benefits of switching to CFL bulbs with the slogan “Change a Bulb, Save a Bear.” They held fundraisers and partnered with local companies to buy the energy-efficient bulbs to give away at community events. And they held a Power Down challenge in which teachers and parents competed to reduce their electricity bills.

Their efforts paid off with giveaways of 1,958 CFL bulbs; 150 energy-saving pledges; and CO₂ reductions of more than 1.5 million pounds! And come this fall, they will embark on their Grand Prize Tundra Buggy trip to Churchill, Manitoba to see polar bears in the wild.

In second place, AHS Zoo School from North Carolina was no less inspiring. Kaitlin Thompson, Julie Hodgin and Cameron Kania were trained to conduct energy audits in schools and local businesses and to make recommendations for adopting greener practices. They gave away thousands of energy efficient, CFL light bulbs, coaxing local company Randolph Electric to donate truckloads of them. These kids are persuasive!

As the runners up, they enjoyed a day at Sea World in San Diego and were treated to a Beluga Encounter. With their fellow finalists cheering them on, they got ‘up-close-and-personal’ with these beautiful creatures.

To learn more about Project Polar Bear, please visit Polar Bears International. Registration for the 2011 Contest begins October 1st — so mark you calendars!

Sam is the PR and Photographer Relations Manager for Lowepro’s Worldwide Marketing team.

The most prestigious photo contest in Russia is the annual Golden Turtle Awards. This year, the contest drew submissions from over 15,000 photographers in 37 countries — all vying for prizes from the total prize package valued at more than 1 million rubles. The winners from all categories take part in a traveling exhibition throughout Russia and gain attention worldwide.

Our Distributor in Russia, Avras, has supported this contest for several years, providing prizes of Lowepro gear for the winners. This year, they arranged for a special, additional prize to be awarded from Lowepro giving one of the contest finalists the opportunity to be featured in our 2012 Loweprofessionals Brochure. We are delighted to give you a sneak peek at the winning image, taken by Dmitri Pavlov. A young biologist and photo enthusiast from Borok, a small town on the shore of the Rybinsk Reservoir, his goal is to use his photography to show what an amazing, and beautiful, world we live in.

Entitled A Small Cow in a Forest of Giant Streetlights, it captures a microscopic insect called a ‘springtail’ amid a forest of equally tiny mushrooms found on a rotting log in Upper Volga. It’s a bit of whimsy from an unseen world in a forest far away that shows beauty in what we might otherwise dismiss as just death and decay. The springtail itself is only 1-2 mm long but nevertheless an important part of our ecosystem.

Congratulations, Dmitri — we look forward to telling your story in the next edition of our Loweprofessionals brochure!

Sam is the PR and Photographer Relations Manager for Lowepro’s Worldwide Marketing team.

While I was sitting in a meeting yesterday, one of my partners in crime, Frank Filice, got this look on his face. It’s a look that’s usually followed by a great idea. He said to me, “What if we did this new thing on Facebook called Free Bag Friday? Every Friday we provide the opportunity for someone in our community to get a Lowepro bag.”

It took me about 3 seconds to realize the beauty of Frank’s idea. At the fourth second, I said, “Let’s do it.” Others have come up with the idea of giving away bags on our site, but it’s the name, Free Bag Friday, that’s so cool. Here’s how it works.

Anyone can win by clicking “Like” and simply adding a brief comment to the Free Bag Friday post our our Facebook page. You have until 6am PDT Monday morning to participate. We then randomly choose the name of one of the folks who commented, and announce the lucky shooter on our Fan Page later that day Monday (with instructions on how to send us their shipping address). That’s all there is to it! This week’s Free Bag Friday prize is a SlingShot 100. Tell us how you’d use the bag… maybe you’ll win it.

We’re off to a great start with it this week. And if you don’t win, don’t worry. We’re going to do it again (and again). Way to go Frank!

Derrick Story is the Photography Evangelist for Lowepro.

Imagine traveling all the way to Churchill, Canada — a tiny little town on the banks of the Hudson Bay, and finding connections almost every time you turn around. That’s exactly what happened on my trip there last November. In Winnipeg the  first night, I was having dinner and started talking with the two women seated next to me – only to find out they were on the same Tundra Buggy Adventure I was. As we talked a bit more, I discovered one of them, Val D’Elia is a videographer for the NY1 News and the other, Alison Wright, is a National Geographic photographer. It gets better. Alison is also working on a project with one of our featured 2011 Loweprofessional photographers, Ami Vitale, documenting the impact of climate change on women in under- developed countries. This project is sponsored by Ripple Effect Images. Watch for upcoming articles about the work they are doing. 

2009 Project Polar Bear Winners on Tundra Buggy 1: Top l-r: Sam Liest, Kaitlin O'Bryan, Miranda Vickery, Madison Vickery. Middle l-r: Rebekah Vickery, Rachael Vickery, Emily Goldstein. Front: Robert Buchanan, Sam Marsh

As we were chatting, along came one of the Project Polar Bear teams, There for Tomorrow — Emily Goldstein, Sam Leist and Kaitlin O’Bryan — from Louisville, Kentucky. The co-winners of the 2009 contest were here for their grand prize trip — a project sponsored by Polar Bears International and co-sponsored by Lowepro.

At lunch the next day, we found ourselves running into the rest of the Project Polar Bear team — The Vickery sisters: Rebekah, Miranda, Rachael and Madison — from Winnipeg. The last time I had seen any of the kids was at the awards ceremonies last April at the San Dego Zoo. It was great to see everyone — and to also find out that their projects are ongoing and the impact to their communities continues to grow.

To top it off, at dinner that night I noticed a women at the next table wearing a jacket with our Lowepro 40th Anniversary logo. I stopped by to say hello, and it turns out she had come all the way from the UK where she had found her jacket in a local camera shop. Not sure of it was Lowepro or the polar bear that prompted her to buy it — but it was great to see!

It was fascinating to experience the global reach this small, remote community had — and all because of the polar bears.

Sam is the PR and Photographer Relations Manager for Lowepro’s Worldwide Marketing team.

Lowepro has teamed up with Nik software to give away a South African Photo Safari Experience of a lifetime.

Led by famed photographer John Paul Caponigro beginning in September 2011, this private photo safari will take you on a wide-ranging exploration of South Africa. The safari will focus on photographing wildlife in the world-famous Sabi Sand Game Reserve and the many landscapes of the Cape Town region.

Sponsored by Artsy Coutre, Blurb, Datacolor, Graphic Authority, Lowepro, Nik Software, and Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and organized by renowned tour operator Eyes on Africa, you’ll experience some of Africa’s finest wildlife photography opportunities, great accommodations, and expert guiding. These two locations have been selected to create a private safari geared specifically toward serious wildlife, landscape and scenic photography.

Enter the sweepstakes, and read more about the partners and the photo safari at www.safarisweepstakes.com

Some days are pure magic. All the elements align to create the perfect day on the tundra. Saturday was like that. The air was crisp, cold and clean. The skies were clear. And the polar bears were both plentiful and active. It was a day that had even the tour guides excited.

Our Tundra Buggy experience started with a bang. A couple of curious bears had come right into the staging area while the guides were trying to load all the Buggys. While they seem to move slowly and nonchalantly, this was nothing to take lightly. When they want to, polar bears can cover quite a distance in just a matter of seconds. So we waited while they were encouraged to move back to a safe distance and then set out. Not more than a minute or two out of the yard, we had our next encounter — which set the tone for the entire day.

We were blessed with sightings of over 30 bears that day and even saw one bear actually swimming in the water. This is rare for this time of year as the bears are still conserving their energy and fat stores while waiting for the ice to freeze and the opportunity to hunt. We saw two bears sparring — or play-fighting — in the distance but missed seeing the action up close. Fortunately we have one more day out on the tundra and hope to see some more of this socializing behavior.

The thing is, though — the bears shouldn’t still be here. With the changing weather patterns, the ice is forming later and later. The fact that both the river and the Bay remain unfrozen is serious as it means the long fast for the bears continues. So while it was a treat to be able to see so many polar bears, it would be much better for them if they had already headed out onto the ice.

The end of our first day on the tundra was truly the icing on the top. We were treated to a magnificent sunset that escorted us all the way back to base. We haven’t seen the Northern Lights, but these colors were spectacular, turning the sky into an amazing artist’s pallette and tinging the snow and ice with pastels.

This has definitely been a trip to remember. The people of Churchill have been wonderful and the folks from Frontiers North Adventures (aka the Tundra Buggy team) absolutely outstanding. I believe Buchachon has enjoyed it every bit as much as I have.

So the only question is — what do we do for our next photo contest????

Traveling by private charter is the only way to go — no lines, no security checks and they actually feed you! We arrived in Churchill to find snow on the ground and temperatures below freezing — perfect for a polar adventure. I wonder how Buchachon is taking this, though. The climate is definitely (forgive the pun) polar opposite from his home in Thailand. I’ve peeked over his shoulder to see some of the images he’s been taking and definitely understand why he is our contest winner. I’ll try and share one or two in future posts.

A couple of folks saw a polar bear on the ice when we were landing — and we had a wonderful encounter with a red fox this afternoon. Highly inquisitive, he meandered all around us for a full five minutes, winding his way closer and closer. We also saw the kids from Project Polar Bear — and we’ll catch up with them again for interviews and polar bear watching in a couple of days. We checked out the polar bear jail — a holding facility used for bears who won’t keep their distance. This is a great program that relocates the bears thus protecting both them and the residents of Churchill.

Tomorrow will find us on the Tundra Buggy and it promises to be a great day. There are a lot of bears around waiting for the ice to come in — so far, both the river and the bay remain unfrozen. For a sneak peak of what’s in store for us, check out this video: Blog from the North.

Our group is an interesting mix of pros and enthusiasts. We have a videographer from New York and a National Geographic photographer with us — more on that in coming posts. We’ve also had some Lowepro sightings — a Flipside and SlingShot are being put to use by two of the members of our group. And, of course, Buchachon is using his new Flipside 500 Limited Edition bag (sorry, it’s not available for sale).

Stay tuned for more tales from the north…..