Our Favourite Places - Photo Competition

Our last comp was a roaring success, we had some stunning entries! You can check out the winning entry here.

This time we want to see a photo of your favourite place. Could be a snapshot of the family batch, the back yard, the ocean....anywhere that you love! Above is a picture of our favourite place, Shelly Bay in Wellington - which conveniently happens to be the location of Pixelpaint HQ.

Send us a photo and paragraph about the photo via email (hello@pixelpaint.co.nz) by the 12th of October to enter. We'll hook you up with a free A3 canvas if your entry is chosen and feature your favourite place on our blog. Too easy! Get into it!

Staff Pick

Being a Pixelpaint employee has a lot of perks. Free coffee, free hugs, occasionally free beers, and everyone that works here is extremely handsome (for real). Also - we get to witness tons of weird/awesome/inspiring prints as they come through production. Every now and then we see one that really resonates with us. Lately we've been thinking a lot about our favourite spots to hang in summer, and Oriental Bay in Wellington was a mutual favourite of the PP crew. When we saw this canvas come through we contacted the owner to ask if we could share it with everyone to kick off what we're calling the 'Staff Pick', which is exactly what it sounds like. Every week or so our staff will pick out a canvas they like and we'll share it with you - providing it's OK with the owner.

Shout out to Nick who took the photo printed on this canvas. Here what he had to say about it: "The pic was taken at about 11am as I was walking up past the monastery on Palliser Road. The sky was particularly moody, yet the scene with the boats reminded me of Lake Geneva. Was taken with a 50mm lens, 90/f16 ( I think)". We love it!

5 Tips on Taking Panoramic Photos

A good panoramic shot captures a landscape like nothing else, not to mention they look killer on the wall (on one of our new panoramic sized canvases!). Think beaches, marinas, stadiums, city skylines, bridges, harbours and mountains. Basically any location with an unobstructed wide angle view will make for awesome panorama photography. And if you're going to do something you might as well do it right - If you wana shoot panoramic photos like a pro check out these 5 photography tips:

1 Focus. It's a good idea to practice using manual focus and focus at hyper focal distance. This will also make things easier during the stitching process. Make sure you have a good focal length, if you cut things too short you might be lacking the pixels you need when it comes to the crunch.

2. Stay away from the polarizer! This is really only a massive deal if there is heaps of blue sky area in your photo. I know it makes everything look cool/vibrant/beautiful but it can also make the tone of the sky really uneven and create noise. It's easier to just leave it and then touch that sucker up in Photoshop!

3. Overlap. Don't be shy with the overlap. Aim to have at least 20-30% overlap between shots. Sometime less is fine but our advice is to experiment with your particular camera to find the sweet spot of overlap.

4. If you don't have a tripod, make sure you practise good hand holding techniques.

5. Be careful with meter and exposure. Make sure you scan the whole area that you want to use in the photo to see what the exposure reading is. If it's drastically different from section to section maybe pop back later when the lighting has settled down a bit! Otherwise you may find yourself choosing between shadows and highlights.  

Pixelpaint Supports Women in Construction!

We were super proud to be involved in the latest exhibition from NAWIC which ran over the past week at Thistle Hall in Wellington, showcasing 27 women in across many different disciplines in the construction industry. 

We thought it was such a cool way to support, encourage and show appreciation for the many talented women who throw down, alongside their male colleagues, to make an important and valuable contribution to the building and construction industry. We printed all of the canvases for this exhibition and they looked awesome! Check out the photos below.

Pixelpaint Art Competition Winner!

Check out this amazing painting titled 'thought' by Angela Lane, AKA the winner of our recent art comp! Angela scored an A1 canvas as her prize for this beautiful submission.

You can see more of her work on her facebook page.

Make sure you keep an eye out for her new website which she is working on at the moment.

If you missed out on entering this competition make sure you head over to our homepage and sign up for our newsletter to stay in the know with out latest competitions and promotions!

Pixelpaint Customer Of The Month for September 2012!

What’s your name? Stan Armiger

Where are you from? My wife and I now reside at Snells Beach after spending four and a half years touring/working around the South Island in our motorhome. We are both enjoying once again being a permanent part of a local community after being intinerants for so long.

Can you tell us about the inspiration behind the art work you chose: Both these pictures were always going to be an early choice for hanging together as we like the subtle and contrasting colours of the Lewis Pass picture with our motorhome engulfed by the huge landscape and also the colours and peacefulness reflected in the shot of an early frosty morning at Lake Waihola. Both pictures we think, blend rather nicely together.

What is your favourite thing/favourite thing someone has said about your canvas: These pics have not been hung long but like us those that have seen them have commented on the colours that you seem to be only able to find in the South Island.

What are you planning for your next canvas: We are presently trolling through literally thousands of shots of our trip endeavouring to select what will furthe enhance our walls as canvasses.

Massive thanks to Stan for this entry! If your a customer of ours and you want a chance to win an A3 canvas check out this blog post for details on how to enter! We'd love to hear for you.