It is that time of year. You know what time. The time where I start to reveal the images for the 2023 Photography 139 Calendar! The following image is the picture that graces the cover:

Front Cover

I took the picture of this mural in a back alley in the downtown business district of Le Mars, Iowa. I like the cover image to have some kind of message to it. Edgar Allan Poe is one of my favorite writers and I definitely agree that “there is no beauty without some strangeness”.

Just look at my friends. All of them beautiful. All of them strange.

Here are some technical details:

CAMERA: Sony ILCE-7M4
DATE: March 11, 2022 – 3:19 PM
LENS: Sigma 17-28mm f/2.8
FOCAL LENGTH: 28mm
APERTURE: f/3.2
EXPOSURE: 1/200
ISO: 100
EXPOSURE BIAS:+.7
FIELD OF VIEW: 65.5 degrees
HYPERFOCAL DISTANCE: 8.15m

I think I put together a decent calendar this year and if you haven’t seen it yet, I can’t wait for you to see it!

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Seems like a good time to reveal the 52 themes for next year’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE:

1. Trains, Planes, and Automobiles
2. Reflection
3. Red
4. Silence
5. Books
6. Play
7. Frame
8. Music
9. Store
10. Sunrise, Sunset
11. Purple
12. Competition
13. Blue
14. Humans
15. Odd Camera Angle
16. Scenes from your Couch
17. Friends
18. Road Trip
19. School
20. Ruins
21. Happy
22. Park
23. Texture
24. Slice of Life
25. Flower
26. ‘Scape
27. Wild Card
28. Time
29. A Shape
30. Guilty Pleasure
31. Liquid
32. Self-Portrait
33. Negative
34. Art
35. Shadow
36. Nature
37. Shoes
38. Sky
39. Black and White
40. Architecture
41. Religion
42. #instagood
43. Vintage
44. Favorite Sports Team
45. Signs
46. Food
47. Portrait
48. Animal
49. Hometown
50. Lines
51. Street Photography
52. Green

Looks like it ill be a good year!

Special thanks to Sarah Toot, Angie, and Andy for making suggestions for this set of themes. I used or modified and used several of their suggestions. After I trimmed the list to 52 themes, I ran it through the random generator 8 times to set the order.

Hoping Year 10 will be the best year yet!

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WATER? It is everywhere? But as a theme, is it wet behind the ears, or was it popular. You will have to keep scrolling to find out.

As of 12:01 PM on Monday, December 12, this was the current list of ACTIVE streaks (ignore the numbers in parentheses):

1-Sarah Karber – 1 week
2-Jesse Howard – 4 weeks
3-Willy McAlpine – 4 weeks
4-Tamara Peterson – 6 weeks
5-Sara Lockner – 12 weeks
6-Brandon Kahler – 17 weeks
7-Linda Bennett – 20 weeks
8-Sarah Toot – 21 weeks
9-Monica Jennings – 21 weeks
10-Angie DeWaard – 25 weeks
11-Dawn Krause – 29 weeks
12-Kim Barker – 35 weeks (2)
13-Joe Duff – 36 weeks (2)
14-Logan Kahler – 38 weeks (3)
15-Teresa Kahler – 47 weeks (2)
16-Carla Stensland – 47 weeks
17-Michelle Haupt – 48 weeks
18-Micky Augustin – 49 weeks (2)
19-Andy Sharp – 50 weeks
20-Bill Wentworth – 51 weeks
21-Cathie Morton – 55 weeks
22-Elizabeth Nordeen – 56 weeks
23-Shannon Bardole-Foley – 58 weeks
24-Kio Dettman – 60 weeks (3)

But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates or streaks. You came to see the submissions and what streaks continued and what streaks flamed out:

Elizabeth Nordeen – 57 weeks

Willy McAlpine – 5 weeks

Angie DeWaard – 26 weeks

Andy Sharp – 51 weeks

Micky Augustin – 50 weeks

Teresa Kahler – 48 weeks

Teresa Kahler

Kio Dettman – 61 weeks

Kio Dettman

Joe Duff – 37 weeks

Carla Stensland – 47 weeks

Carla Stensland

Linda Bennett – 21 weeks

Linda Bennett

Logan Kahler – 39 weeks

Logan Kahler

Sarah Karber – 2 weeks

Tamara Peterson – 7 weeks

Bill Wentworth – 52 weeks

Christopher D. Bennett

Dawn Krause – 30 weeks

Dawn Krause

Kim Barker – 36 weeks

Monica Jennings – 22 weeks

Sabas Hernandez – 1 week

Michelle Haupt – 49 weeks

Cathie Morton – 56 weeks

Suzie Brannen – 1 week

Becky Parmelee – 1 week

Jesse Howard – 5 weeks

Sarah Toot – 22 weeks

Brandon Kahler – 18 weeks

Shannon Bardole-Foley – 59 weeks

Sara Lockner – 13 weeks

Mike Vest – 1 week

29 participants! That is a great week!

We had submissions (mostly assumptions on my part) from Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, and Texas this week.

I took my picture inside my house.

We had some pretty big milestones! Angie joined the Half Year Club as her streak reached 26 weeks.

Bill joined the 1 Year Club as his streak reached 52 weeks!

And there was no bad news! There wasn’t a single streak snapped this week! WooHoo!

But enough dwelling on the past. Time to look to the future. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future! This week’s theme:

EXPLORE

REMINDER: Next Monday is the day after Christmas. It isn’t a holiday per se, but most people don’t work. I don’t work at my day job. I might just go on a road trip that day. What I am saying is plan to get your submission in cause you might not get any kind of reminder.

EXPLORE! What a great theme for Year 9 of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE!

But what is an EXPLORE picture? Simply put it is a picture taken of somebody that is EXPLOR(E)ing or trying to at least. See Billy’s efforts in the theme reveal image. It can be of something you found when you were out on the EXPLORE. Or it could be a picture of things you use when you are out on the EXPLORE. There are so many possibilities!

While considering possible places for you to EXPLORE, meditate on the following quote:

Not all those who wander are lost.
-J.R.R. Tolkien

I look forward to your interpretation.

RULES

The picture has to be taken between 12:01 PM today and 11 AM next Monday. This isn’t a curate your photos project. This is a get your butt off the couch (unless you are taking your picture from the couch) and take pictures challenge.

You can send your images to either bennett@photography139.com OR you may text them to my Pixel 5.

That is all I got, so if the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we will all be sharing your idea of EXPLORE in this place that I hope more than I just get lost in next Monday.