Lowepro Flipside 400 AW

The Flipside 400 AW is a high-performance camera backpack designed with large capacity, premium security, all-day comfort, plus protection from the elements with our unique All Weather cover.

And, it’s the selection for this week’s Free Bag Friday. Just add a comment to this blog about how you’d use the bag if you won. We’ll randomly select a winner on Monday, June 6. The winning comment will be posted here and on our Facebook Fan Page.

Good luck everyone… and happy Friday!

In just three short weeks, the 2011 LOOK|3 Festival of the Photograph will take place in Charlottesville, Virginia. This amazing event was founded byLoweprofessional Michael ‘Nick’ Nichols, Jessica Nagle, Will Kerner and Jon Golden. A celebration created by photographers, for photographers and everyone who shares a passion for the art; it is truly a world-class experience. June 9-11 will be three days packed with excitement and activities intended to make you fall in love with photography all over again.

The Festival includes exhibits and on-stage appearances by 3 ‘legacy’ photographers: Nan Goldin, Massimo Vitale and Antonin Kratochvil. In addition, there will be outdoor screenings of work submitted by 25 artists, workshops and Masters Talks from legendary photographers like Mary Ellen Mark and Steve McCurry.

Throughout the festival, historic downtown Charlottesville will be transformed into a living gallery with images hanging from the trees and projected in storefront windows and on the sides of buildings. In an atmosphere described by Andy Grundberg of the New York Times as being ‘like Arles in the late 1970′s…’, photographers from all over the world will gather to share images, ideas and inspiration.

If this sounds like your cup of tea — you’re in luck. We have 2 tickets to give away!

What you have to do:
Just post a comment and tell us why you’d like to go and you’ll be entered in a random drawing.

What you can win:
2 Festival Passes — all-inclusive 3-day tickets that allow admittance into all featured events: INsight Conversations with Nan Goldin, Massimo Vitali, and Antonin Kratochvil; Masters Talks; reserved seating at SHOTS and WORKS in the Charlottesville Pavilion; and the Closing Party on Saturday night.

When you’ll know who won:
Winners will be announced Monday, May 23rd on our Facebook page.

Our own Derrick Story and staff videographer Josh Semolik will be on hand. Watch for them as they film the event and tape interviews. Bring along your Lowepro bag and you might get the chance to be featured on our web site!

And, of course, the fine print:
This prize does not include transportation or accommodations or anything other than the 2 Festival Passes (valued at $125 each).

Stay tuned for the announcement of our winner!

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

Every photographer understands the importance of light as it relates to their photography, but how many have actually mastered using it? For myself, it’s a constant learning process, and I find myself thinking if only I had a proper lighting set up, I could get that specific look I’m going for. If you’ve ever found yourself needing more lighting equipment, than I’ve got some exciting news for you.

We have teamed up with Photoflex to give away a great lighting rig, the Extra Small LiteDome Location kit. Some of the SWEET features include the new Photoflex® StarFire Wireless Flash and FlashFire Wireless Trigger/Receiver and the hugely popular Photoflex® LiteReach. The full Lowepro giveaway kit includes:

• Extra Small LiteDome
• Basic Connector
• FlashFire Wireless Trigger/Receiver
• StarFire ShoeMount Digital Flash
• LiteReach Kit (which includes Adjustable ShoeMount Hardware and ShoeMount Multiclamp)
• Small LiteStand

Value- $405.00

This is a great setup that will give you some awesome versatility while on the go with your Lowepro bag.

To enter, simply reply to our blog post with a comment on what you would do with this equipment.

Winners will be announced on our Facebook page, so if you are not yet a fan, make sure to “Like” us.  Also, our friends at Photoflex are giving away a Lowepro Pro Roller x100 on their site, so make sure you check them out on Facebook as well. Contest is void where prohibited, and valid for those within the Continental U.S.

Best of luck to you!  – Frank

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.