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