As we are about to kickoff the 9th Year of THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE (birthed into this world kicking and screaming as the RANDOM WEEKLY PHOTO EXPERIMENT) I thought we could look at what we accomplished as a community in Year 8.

+ There were 866 total submissions by 35 different participants. Averaging 16.65 submissions a week.
+ The most popular themes were HOBBIES and FRIENDS. Both had 30 submissions.
+ SYMMETRY + PATTERNS had the most participants with 19.

Here are the individual statistics for the 35 different participants:
+ Christopher D. Bennett – 52 weeks, 52 photos.
+ Kio Dettman – 50 weeks, 119 photos.
+ Micky Augustin – 44 weeks, 53 photos.
+ Tamara Peterson – 44 weeks, 44 photos.
+ Shannon Bardole-Foley – 42 weeks, 42 photos.
+ Kim Barker – 36 weeks, 43 photos.
+ Carla Stensland – 32 weeks, 73 photos.
+ Elizabeth Nordeen – 32 weeks, 40 photos.
+ Michelle Haupt – 28 weeks, 28 photos.
+ Bill Wentworth – 28 weeks, 28 photos.
+ Cathie Raley – 26 weeks, 26 photos.
+ Andy Sharp – 26 weeks, 52 photos.
+ Teresa Kahler – 22 weeks, 42 photos.
+ Joe Duff – 19 weeks, 25 photos.
+ Mike Vest – 16 weeks, 16 photos.
+ Logan Kahler – 14 weeks, 32 photos.
+ Jesse Howard – 14 weeks, 17 photos.
+ Dawn Krause – 14 weeks, 17 photos.
+ Jen Ensley-Gorshe – 12 weeks, 20 photos.
+ Angie DeWaard – 12 weeks, 14 photos.
+ Monica Henning – 11 weeks, 24 photos.
+ Becky Parmelee – 11 weeks, 11 photos.
+ Linda Bennett – 5 weeks, 8 photos.
+ Sara Lockner – 5 weeks, 6 photos.
+ Amy Peterson – 4 weeks, 6 photos.
+ Susanna Funk – 3 weeks, 3 photos.
+ Aaron Barnett – 3 weeks, 3 photos.
+ Lori Backous – 2 weeks, 4 photos.
+ Steve White – 2 weeks, 4 photos.
+ Jodie Cue – 1 week, 3 photos.
+ Sarah Karber – 1 week, 1 photo.
+ Derrick Gorshe – 1 week, 1 photo.
+ Layla Gorshe – 1 week, 1 photo.
+ Evie Gorshe – 1 week, 1 photo.
+ Mike Parmelee – 1 week, 1 photo.

Thanks to everybody that participated on any level!

I’ve gotten slightly into Snapchat streaks in the last few weeks and I’m going to carry the idea of streaks over to THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE.

Heading into this week, these are the people that have “streaks” of submitting photos for consecutive weeks:

+ Layla Gorshe – 1 week.
+ Evie Gorshe – 1 week.
+ Becky Parmelee – 1 week.
+ Mike Parmelee – 1 week.
+ Angie DeWaard – 1 week.
+ Andy Sharp – 1 week.
+ Teresa Kahler – 1 week.
+ Jen Ensley-Gorshe – 1 week.
+ Bill Wentworth – 2 weeks.
+ Joe Duff – 2 weeks.
+ Dawn Krause – 3 weeks.
+ Cathie Raley – 6 weeks.
+ Elizabeth Nordeen – 7 weeks.
+ Kim Barker – 9 weeks.
+ Tamara Peterson – 12 weeks.
+ Kio Dettman – 12 weeks.
+ Christopher D. Bennett – 431 weeks.

Okay, in fairness, I run this show and it does bend around my schedule, slightly, so my streak doesn’t really count for much. It will be interesting to see who is able to build on their streak this week and who has their streak snapped.

As we start up Year 9, just a reminder that the picture has to be taken the week of the theme. The picture needs to be taken somewhere between 12:01 PM on the Monday the theme is revealed and 11:00 AM the following Monday, when I click Schedule on this post and head to lunch. This is a get off your butt and TAKE photos challenge. It is NOT a curate your photos challenge.

Photos are not evaluated for quality (at least not by me) to be posted. This challenge is about doing the work. You put in the work, the quality will come. What I am saying is, don’t hold back a submission because you don’t think it is good enough.

There are two ways to submit your photos to me. You can email me at bennett@photography139.com OR you can text them to my phone. Either one is perfectly acceptable.

These are not rules, but I’d say fairplay guidelines:

+ Don’t send me multiple pictures of the same subject in the same week. Send me multiple pictures, sure, but make them unique.
+ Don’t send me multiple pictures and ask me to choose the best one. I won’t do it. Even on a theme that is coming up in a few weeks where there will be for the first time ever a limitation of 1 submission per participant, I still won’t do it.
+ Watch the resolution of the images you submit. The size should be at least 800 pixels for it to look decent on the website.
+ YOU should be the one taking the picture. If a friend of yours takes a picture and you want to submit it for them, that is fine, but they should get the credit for the picture and they should be cool with it being posted.

Enough of that noise. You didn’t come here to listen to me talk all tommyrot about participation rates and the best ways to participate, you came to see the submissions:

Evie Gorshe (2 weeks)

Layla Gorshe (2 weeks)

Kim Barker (10 weeks)

Kim Barker

Micky Augustin (1 week)

Carla Stensland (1 week)

Carla Stensland

Shannon Bardole-Foley (10 weeks)

Bill Wentworth (3 weeks)

Christopher D. Bennett

Tamara Peterson (13 weeks)

Cathie Raley (7 weeks)

Teresa Kahler (2 weeks)

Elizabeth Nordeen (8 weeks)

Elizabeth Nordeen

Linda Bennett (1 week)

Kio Dettman (13 weeks)

Kio Dettman

Dawn Krause (4 weeks)

Jesse Howard (1 week)

Jesse Howard

Logan Kahler (1 week)

Logan Kahler

Logan Kahler

Andy Sharp (2 weeks)

Andy Sharp

Monica Henning (1 week)

Monica Henning

Becky Parmelee (2 weeks)

29 submissions from 20 participants. That 20 participants is more than any theme had last year! I’m pumped now! That is a great week! Lots of streaks continued. Only the streaks of Mike Parmelee, Angie DeWaard, and Jen Ensley-Gorshe came to an end.

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:

ROCK

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

But what is a ROCK photo? Well, there are several types of rocks. Igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary.  All you have to do is find a rock you like (I’m partial to igneous) and take a picture of it. And ROCKs have so many uses, they can hold historical markers, they are canvasses for artists, and people build things out of them.  Just to name a few.  Of course, ROCK can have multiple meanings. There is the type of ROCK that Twisted Sister wants to do. Which isn’t all that different from the kind of ROCK that AC/DC salutes those about to engage in or that Queen wants to do to you. Whatever definition of ROCK you use, it will be the right one for you.

I’d be remiss, if I didn’t point out that ROCK was a theme suggested by Angie.  Thanks for the suggestion Angie.

While thinking on your possible subjects for  your ROCK picture, think on this following quote from one of my old time favorite movies.  INHERIT THE WIND. It is a highly dramatized telling of the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial. One of the lawyers that is prosecuting the teacher on trial for teaching evolution has taken the stand as an expert on The Bible. The lawyer defending the teacher is cross examining him.

Drummond:  It’s sad that we don’t all have your positive knowledge of what is right and wrong, Mr. Brady. How old do you think this rock is?

Brady: I am more interested in the “Rock of Ages” than I am in the age of rocks.

Drummond: Dr. Paige of Oberlin College tells me this rock is at least 10 million years old.

Brady: Well, well, Colonel Drummond, you managed to speak here some of that scientific testimony, after all.

Drummond: Look, Mr. Brady. These are the fossil remains of a marine prehistoric creature found in this very county, and which lived here millions of years ago when these very mountain ranges were submerged in water.

Brady: I know. The Bible gives a fine account of the flood. But your Professor’s a little mixed up in his dates. That rock is not more than six thousand years old.

Drummond: How do ya know?

Brady: A fine biblical scholar, Bishop Usher, has determined for us the exact date and hour of the Creation. It occurred in the year 4004 B.C.

Drummond: Well, that’s Bishop Usher’s opinion.

Brady: It’s not an opinion. It’s a literal fact — which the good Bishop arrived at through careful computation of the ages of the prophets, as set down in the Old Testament. In fact, he determined that the Lord began the Creation on the 23rd of October, 4004 B.C. at, uh, 9:00am.

Drummond: [Is] that Eastern Standard Time? Or Rocky Mountain Time? It wasn’t Daylight Saving Time, was it, because the Lord didn’t make the sun until the fourth day.

Brady: That is correct.

Drummond: That first day, what do you think, it was 24 hours long?

Brady: [The] Bible says it was a day.

Drummond: Well, there was no sun out. How do you know how long it was?

Brady: The Bible says it was a day!

Drummond: Well, was it a normal day, a literal day, 24 hour day?

Brady: I don’t know.

Drummond: What do you think?

Brady: I do not think about things that I do not think about.

Now maybe that scene doesn’t have much to do with rocks, but any chance I can even tangentially reference that movie I will.  I look forward to seeing your ROCK interpretations.

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 our idea of ROCK in this place that records my metamorphic change next Monday.