If you’re looking for the perfect party invitation or want to send a virtual holiday card, now you can do so in style — Brooklyn style.
A new section at www.pingg.com, an online invitation Web site, offers a designer series dubbed “Brooklyn’s Best.” The 21 available images were selected from hundreds of submissions to Pingg’s amateur photography contest.
“The contest was great and allowed me to say to my friends and family, ‘Look how cool this is.’ I’m happy for people to use it,” said Sheepshead Bay resident Adam Husted.
Husted, who works as a publicist at the Brooklyn Museum, took his Pingg photo while exploring the Brooklyn Botanic Garden during his lunch break. Featuring a clear blue sky, lush green grounds and blooming azaleas, the image is so breathtaking that it appears as a magical scene.
“I would walk in the Garden when it was nice in the spring,” Husted explained. “Being able to do that affords you the opportunity to know when everything is blooming. I always knew there was a beautiful section of azaleas and I wanted to take that shot. I even waited for a crisp blue sky day with clouds because I knew that would add this beautiful element to the photograph.”
Robin Lester was asked to promote Pingg’s contest on her Web site, http://www.clintonhillblog.com, but decided to enter the competition. Her photo of the Grill House on the Coney Island boardwalk is now posted on Pingg’s site.
“I thought about iconic Brooklyn locations. I took it back in 2007 and just loved the way it turned out — the colors and capturing the atmosphere of old Coney Island,” Lester said. “I love to take pictures of stuff that I feel has been around for a while and you can clearly tell has a social and emotional history that predates my time. There’s such a great character about Brooklyn.”
Tom Callan, a Brooklyn Heights resident and newspaper photographer with 25 years on the job, is “honored” to have Pingg include his photo of a bustling subway car.
“I was standing on the platform with my camera and I looked in the window,” recalled Callan, who works for The Brooklyn Paper. “A little kid looked at me and he had a glint in his eyes. He raised his hands and started making some kind of sign at me. At the same time, I raised the camera and took the picture. I took one photograph and the train took off. To me, this represented what Brooklyn was — so many different kinds of people doing so many kinds of things.”