Our group's Inclusion & Diversity Council (IDC) recently undertook a Workplace Improvement Project focused on updating and enhancing our work area.  In addition to inside window boxes with plants, outside flowers and wreaths, and a fantastic new lobby with a Kodak inspired floor, they began hunting for some new wall art.  



As part of this, a photo contest was held to encourage employees to take pictures over the summer, generate conversations, and to get some original pictures for displaying around the building.  

To kick off the Photo Contest, early in the summer the IDC sponsored a digital photography class to share some basic photography tips since not everyone in Kodak is actually in advanced photography.  Following that training and throughout the summer, employees were encouraged to shoot all the pictures they could.  

At the end of summer, an announcement was made to submit their favorite shots.  The contest was open to all Retail System Solutions employees, and 170 pictures were submitted by 36 photographers.  Each person could submit two photos in each of the categories.

Novice:  Nature, Portrait, Funny, Landscape, Action, and Computer Enhanced

Advanced:  Nature, Portrait, Funny, Landscape, Action, and Computer Enhanced

In September, all photos were posted in a common area of our building and voting commenced.  Winners will not be officially announced until tomorrow, Wednesday, October 22, but how would you have voted???? 

1. Visit the Online Gallery  


 
2. Place Your Votes

3. Post Your Comments on this Blog - so we can thank our budding photographers!

Over the Memorial Day weekend we decided to finally check out the local Rochester Seneca Park Zoo. This zoo has been in operation since 1893 and a staple in the Rochester community.

We snapped quite a few photos of elephants, baboons, penguins, rhinos, a bald eagle, a monkey and an owl:

 

The Hyenas were especially crazy that day likely due to lunch time. Once they came out of their enclosure, one kept running laps around the cage so I found myself snapping the same shot each time. After ten or fifteen laps, he finally received his lunch box. Incidentally, it contained broccoli!

 

It was great fun seeing all of the animals, but hopefully next time the polar bears will be awake!

On May 8, 2008 our team participated in the United Way's Annual Day of Caring.  Each year, hundreds from work places across the Rochester donate their time, talents, and energy to help local not-for-profit locations with improvement projects.  This year, about 1,000 people from the Rochester and surrounding areas improved 70 sites.

While Kodak employees across the city participated, our working group was about 30 or so people from engineering, marketing, and various other groups from Retail System Solutions.  Our team assembled very early in the morning at our office building to car pool into the neighborhood we were supporting.  Our assignment was a city shelter that was in need of both painting and yard work.

I was assigned to the painting team which was split into floors so I spent most of my day on the third floor painting doorway trim and hallway walls.  There was quite a lot to do in one short day so each sub-team tackled an area of the building.

From left to right:  Greg Supranowitz & Kathy Bonsignore, Megan Schneider with Adam Smith looking on, Adam Smith, Roger Strong - - Photos courtesy of Jay Shelofsky during our Work Day

The results were impressive at the end of the day.  I think that the team completed most if not all the needed painting and landscaping that our hosts required.  Participating in this team gives as sense of helping the community.

The most recent weeks have begun to look and feel a bit like spring might actually arrive. While temperatures still dip into the 30's, they also reach into the 50's. The weather has finally given way to April showers here in Rochester, so now we all look forward to the May flowers.

Ahh, the memories of green grass, flowers and sun bring back memories of brighter days. I typically try to capture some of those glorious days while they are occurring to look back at during the gray season. These are some of my favorites from the last couple of years mostly using the V705, using various settings depending on the time of day. I have found that the close up mode works for most and turn the flash off and on depending on amount of natural light.

Once these start to show their colors, we know the season will be in full swing for all of those activities that we love to do during the warmer weather. Golf tournaments will start up, yard work will need tending to and of course, we will find time to for day trips and goofing off with the pups.

Canoeing on the Finger Lakes is another great activity that you can pretty much enjoy from spring to fall here:

Can't wait till the real thing gets here! So far, only the very tops of the tulips and daffodils have made it above ground and no leaves yet on trees, but we know it's just around the corner!

March 2nd will mark the second birthday of my youngest pup, Cali Bean, a Chesapeake Bay Retriever.  Looking back at all of the memories and photos we have taken since her arrival, I can recall all of the things she has learned.

• To sleep all day while we go to work
• Play fetch
• Trick us into giving extra meals
• Scam us for a free treat
• Steal toys from her sister

With a chance to utilize all of the printing and creative products our team recently displayed at the Photo Marketing Association event in Las Vegas to make some keepsakes of her first two years, I pulled together all of my favorite photos since we got her at 4 months and set off to get creative. 

Photos of playing with lots of new toys over the past couple of years, sleeping with her best bud and turning up lots of trouble while sorting laundry.  I also put these onto the Kodak Gallery to share with our friends and family for her birthday.

I quickly created a birthday card, a photobook and a photo collage all using a KODAK Picture Kiosk to highlight and remember all the fun.



Happy Birthday Cali Bean!

For Christmas this year, I was lucky enough to receive one of this year's hottest - an iPod Touch with a personal message engraved on the back.  Unlike my much older version, it does everything anyone could ever want on the go including listening to music, viewing photos, playing online games, watching full length movies and television shows and even searching the web and watching YouTube at no charge!


 
Inscription on Reverse of iPod Touch

I quickly saw the potential to consolidate all of my favorite photos, multimedia, and videos into one easily accessed on the go. 

If I have learned anything from all of the time spent around photos here at Kodak, it is that organization is everything.  Large folders of random images are pointless because you can't find what you need and have no reference to what event they were from. 

Here is how I went about building my perfect Touch.  They might be helpful to new owners.

1. I located all of my favorite photos over the past few years from various storage locations.
2. Then created directories meaningful to me:  Dogs, Friends & Family, Trips, Holidays and Nature. 
3. Lastly, I named them such that they create an order.  I did mine based on time, but anything would work.  The device happens to put them in alpha-numeric order.

I put only my favorite photos from many years of photography in there with the thought that I could keep updating as more favorites were taken or found.   Once complete, I ended up with around 100 images that I use frequently for greeting cards, prints and sharing with friends and family.  This was a great activity and refreshed my memory of many favorite trips, events and goofy photos we have taken over the years.

Here is how I ended up with my still photos:

I could then move on to all of those other features on my new toy.  Music is the obvious next choice so I spent MANY days of my vacation importing CDs and digital music files into iTunes to put on the Touch.  I loaded all that I could think of and still had much more than 8 GB of my 16 GB to use for more fun.

My fantastic husband purchased and downloaded Ratatouille from the iTunes Store as well as the first season of Friends...and yes, I remember watching that many years ago.  I also signed up for many free Podcasts from Discovery Network, CNN and others to fill my down time.  Still didn't fill it so I have room to grow.

One more tip....we invested in a DVD writer to back up all the downloads.  This saves you from filling your hard drive.  You pay for downloads and many you will not want to store permanently on your PC or iPod so a DVD back up is great!

Can't wait to leave for PMA at the end of the month!