Recharge Your Batteries and Enter Your Best Photo!

Energizer has teamed up with National Geographic to host the third annual Energizer Ultimate Photo Contest, and they want you to enter! All you need to do is sort through your best pictures and enter them here for a chance to get your photo published in the Dec issue of National Geographic. And get this: the grand prize is a National Geographic Expeditions trip for two to Greece! How cool is that?

The six categories are animals/wildlife, nature, people/cultures, travel, weather and action/energy, so keep that in mind while picking your favs. Pictures will be judged by renowned photographer Jim Richardson on how well they capture the essence of the theme (25%), their impact and creativity (50%), and composition/technical quality (25%). But don't be intimidated, last year one of the category winners was shot with a regular digital still camera! So go ahead and send in your most adorable shot of Fido in the park, your most awe-inspiring vacations pic, or the one of your children you love so much that you actually had it printed and framed (because if you're anything like me, that only happens if the photo is really special!). So you might have TONS of pictures to look through now. Or maybe you will be heading out to take some spectacular shots to enter. Either way, get going! You must enter before midnight the night of June 30th, so no procrastinating!

But the fun doesn't end there. As a special perk for my readers, I will be picking 3 lucky followers to EACH receive TWO 4-packs of Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries! (And Energizer was kind enough to give me some to try as well - Thanks, Energizer!) Energizer's Ultimate Lithium batteries are an eco-friendly alternative to regular alkaline batteries in several ways. First off, they last way longer (up to 8 times as long!), so they create less waste. Second, they are made using lithium (duh!), which is the lightest known metal. This is important because most of the concern surrounding the environment is caused by heavy metal pollution and accumulation. Lithium is also a very "active" metal, so it can deliver a great deal of power while using less material and at the same time is 1/3 the weight of a "regular" alkaline battery. Two more attributes are that its construction is leak resistant, which is very important to the environment, and it has a storage life of 15 years so it won't lose its juice just sitting around waiting for its turn. All of these qualities make the Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries a great choice for your digital camera or other high-tech device (or for your kid's favorite battery-operated toy...that is if you want it to "keep on going").

Sign up to follow the EcoActivista blog and then leave a comment below telling me your favorite color, and I'll enter you in my random drawing. It's that easy! You don't even have to necessarily enter the photo contest, but you should...what the heck, right? I know you want a free trip to Greece too!