Zenfolio Team Blog

We are happy to announce that the winners for the 2009 contest have been selected. The winning photos will appear on our homepage very soon, when our next release goes live. There's a lot to learn from these astonishing works! You can view the winning photographers in this colleciton.

The winners are (listed by the number of votes):

1. Prom dresses - Brooke Moxley Photography
2. Purple flower - Cathy Stancil Belle Image
3. Water drops - Eric Phillips Photographs
4. Fjords -  Eric Rowe Photography
5. Vespa Scooters - Eric Shemtov Photography
6. Colorful Mask - Joe Marquez - The Smoking Camera
7. Red daisies - Eric Phillips Photographs
8. Remembrance -tim austin images
9. Japanese Fans - Joe Marquez - The Smoking Camera
10. Kids with paint - Images By Lori

We would like to thank everybody who contributed their works and voted for their favorites.

We received 483 submissions - our biggest contest ever! Now, after some heated discussions, we narrowed it down to 30 nominees and need your help picking 10 finalists.

Here's how to vote:

1. Review the collection of nominees
2. Vote by selecting the option in the forum post.
   (you need to be a registered forums member to vote) 

The top ten images will be featured on our homepage with the next release. We would like to thank everyone for participation! As usual, we encourage you to take some time to view the submissions - it is a great learning experience!

We are reopening submissions for more candidate photos to be featured on our Home page. Our theme this time is Chromatism, defined as The state of being colored, as in the case of images formed by a lens.

We are looking for photos that are striking because of the color usage. We will accept a lot of flexibility in the subject so B&W photographs will definitely qualify if the lack of color 'makes' the image.

Submit your photos by replying to the forum thread. Submission deadline: Sunday, May 24th, 11:59 p.m.

The rules and requirements are listed in this forum post. We are looking forward to seeing many wonderful works by Zenfolio photographers!

This feature allows for better integration of a personal web site hosted elsewhere with a Zenfolio account.

A personal site usually displays a portfolio or blog including information about services offered, prices, contact information, and latest news. With this new feature, a Zenfolio account can be used more effectively as a back-end engine for hosting photos, for client proofing, order placement, and fulfillment. This feature is a part of the Premium Subscription. You can find it under Preferences -> Custom Home Page.

If you enable the Custom Home page feature, your personal web site will replace the Zenfolio-provided Home page. All "Home" links from Zenfolio galleries, as well as your name on all the pages will link back to your personal site.

Let's take a look at one example from Eric Rudd Photography. Eric has a personal web site http://www.ericruddphotography.com. Take a minute to appreciate the neat presentation of Eric's portfolio, read Eric's blog below the slideshow, and learn more about Eric's services. Then click the "Client Proofing" link in the top menu, which takes you to a group called "Clients" in Eric's Zenfolio account.  Clients can open their galleries, enjoy the photos, and order prints and products offered by Eric. Now, click "Eric Rudd Photography" at the top of any page and you will return back to Eric's personal web site.

Eric has customized the All Photographs group in the root level of his Zenfolio account by giving it a friendly URL (http://cart.ericruddphotography.com/clients ) and changing the title to 'Clients'.

He also used Customize Visitor View > Options to remove the "breadcrumbs" and to simplify the page by hiding dates, guestbook, and other page elements to keep the page simple and clean.

With this feature, you can link your personal site to the root level of your Zenfolio account. All public groups, galleries, and collections that you see in the Organizer will be displayed on this page. In essence, the All Photographs section is displayed on the page linked from your personal web site. You can also change the text "All Photographs", just as you would change the title of any other group.

Since the custom Home page replaces Zenfolio-provided Home page, the Recently Added and Featured sections are no longer displayed. To replace them, you can create a correspondingly named group and place it directly under All Photographs. Alternatively, you can create a gallery called "Featured" that will contain photos that you would like to bring attention to. Then, you can link from your personal web site to this Featured gallery.  You can also organize your work by category, such as Weddings, Portraits, Sports, etc., by placing galleries for each category into a corresponding group, and linking these groups from your external web site. This gives you complete control over how your visitors navigate through your site.

We are working on providing more choices for the Zenfolio Home page layouts, as well as customization options. The Custom Home Page feature is designed to work for those photographers who already have their own site and are looking to better integrate it with their Zenfolio account.

Mpix is offering a special discount until March 22nd: 25% off all Wall Clings.

Five wall cling sizes are available to choose from. See the complete list of available Mpix products here.

Offer expires at midnight on Sunday, March 22nd. No coupons are needed, new prices will automatically apply in the Shopping Cart.

Mpix is offering a special discount until March 11th: 25% off all Canvas Gallery Wraps.

Seven new canvas sizes were recently added for a total of 13 available sizes. See the complete list of all available Mpix products here.

Offer expires at midnight on Wednesday, March 11th.

Mpix is offering a special deal this weekend on 8x10 prints: 50% off all 8"x10" prints on all paper types.

Regular E-Surface Color paper prints are only $0.99 while Metallic and True Black & White paper prints are $1.24. No special code is needed, new price is automatically reflected during the checkout.

Offer expires at midnight on Sunday, March 1st.

Mpix is having a special promotion from now until February 25^th: all large prints sized 16" x 20" and larger are 25% off.

This is the perfect opportunity to get your favorite shots blown up to poster-size prints, ready for framing. You have a choice of professional-grade E-Surface, Metallic, and True Digital Black & White papers. As usual, Mpix will print, package, and ship your order with the highest attention to detail, delighting you with the results. 

Stay tuned for more promotions from Mpix in the future! 

We are on our way to Las Vegas to exhibit at the WPPI convention taking place next week. If you have not been to WPPI, it is the best wedding and portrait photography focused trade show on the West Coast held once a year.

We will be presenting Zenfolio service and answering questions at the Mpix booth #701. If you are planning to go to the show, please stop by and say hello.

TRADE SHOW HOURS:
Monday 10:30am-4:00pm
Tuesday 10:30am-4:00pm
Wednesday 10:30am-3:00pm

We will be presenting Zenfolio service and answering questions at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco this week. Please stop by Mpix booth #2344 to say hello.

TRADE SHOW HOURS:
Tuesday, January 6th 11am-6pm
Wednesday, January 7th 11am-6pm
Thursday, January 8th 11am-6pm
Friday, January 9th 10am-4pm

For a free Expo registration, visit www.macworldexpo.com and enter discount code VGY11267 

As the year 2008 is winding down, we would like to thank all of our users and partners for their continued support and enthusiasm.

The growth of the Zenfolio user-base accelerated rapidly over the past few months, and the service became mature in 2008. We have tripled all business numbers (some even quadrupled) and ended the year as a financially stable and profitable company.

We would like to wish everyone a happy and healthy year 2009, and we promise to deliver more exciting features and innovation next year. Thank you for your continued support.

Happy New Year!

Help us pick the top ten photos from the submissions to the December photo contest. We picked 30 finalists from 156 submissions and now are turning to you to help identify the winners. The top 10 photos that will get the most votes will be feautred on our homepage for at least one month.

The process is the same as before:

1. Review the collection of finalists

2. Vote for your favorite image in this forum post

Thank you for participation, and don't forget to explore the galleries of the photographers who submitted their works. There are many more wonderful photos!

We are reopening submissions for more candidate photos to be featured on our Home page.

You can find more details and submit your photos in this forums post.

The theme is Winter and Holiday Season, and the deadline to submit your photos is Friday, November 30th

The top 10 winners will be featured on our Home page.

We are looking forward to seeing more wonderful images from you! You can see the finalists from our previous contest in this collection.

We are on our way to New York to exhibit at the PhotoPlus Expo taking place this week. If you have not been to PhotoPlus Expo, it is the best photography-focused trade show on the East Coast held once a year.

We will be presenting Zenfolio service and answering questions at the Mpix booth #1628. We will also be handing out show-special discounts. If you are in the NY area or thinking of going to the show, stop by and say hello.

TRADE SHOW HOURS:
Thursday 9:00am-5:00pm
Friday 9:00am-5:00pm
Saturday 10:00am-4:00pm

Over the last two weeks we have received over 250 submissions for featured photographs (see the original post). We would like to thank everyone who took the time to submit the photos. The submitted works revealed many great artists, and it took us almost a week of discussions to narrow down the submissions to 30 finalists. 

We are now asking for your help picking out the winners. Over the next 7 days we invite you to vote for your favorite photograph to be featured on the Zenfolio front page. We also encourage you to visit the galleries of the artists whose images are selected. There are many more gems to be found.

Here is how to vote:

1. Review the collection of finalists »
2. Vote for your favorite photo on this forum post »

Thank you very much for your participation!