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The Short Version: This is a photography challenge where each month 28 themes will be listed, one per day with the last two or three being used as catch-up days. Anyone who completes the challenge for a given month will be awarded a banner.

The Long Version:

On or about the 15th of the previous month a calendar showing the next month's themes will be posted so that photographers can get a jump on their shooting.

Posting:

WHEN DO I POST?

Ideally each person will post that day's theme on that day. Most days, ONLY pictures for that day's theme will be allowed. On Sunday, photographers can make a catch up post for any shots they didn't get to post that week.

So you could post one picture on each day of the week.
Or, let's say you post on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, but can't post on Wednesday or Thursday. On Saturday you can make a post that has Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday in it.
Or, if for some reason you just can't find a shot for Wednesday, you can post Thursday and Saturday on Saturday and skip Wednesday for now. You'll have a last chance to post anything missing at the end of the month.
Once a given week has passed, you can't go back and post pictures for those themes until the end of the month.

Last Chance: There will be 28 themes each month, which leaves us with either 2 or 3 days at the end of the month. This will be your time to go back and fill in any gaps in your calendar.

You are NOT expected to take the picture the day you post. You're being given the whole list in advance so that you have some time to fill all the prompts. It's just the posting that needs to happen on schedule.


HOW DO I POST?

Subject Line:  Please put your user name and the theme in the subject line.

Tags:  Each photographer will get their own tag.  PLEASE use your tag each time you post so that I can quickly scroll through and check to see that you've posted each of the 28 themes.  I don't want anyone to not get their banner because I couldn't find your post on the 23rd.  There will also be a tag for each day of the month so people can find a given theme and see all the posts for it.

Post: Please only put one photo outside of a cut.  You only need one photo per day to qualify, but if you just can't decide which of the six great shots of your dog to use for "cute", feel free to post them all, just put the other 5 under a cut.  If you're doing a catch-up post, please list the missing theme title/s in the cut-tag.  Again, you can post more than one theme or even more than one shot for a given theme in a catch-up post, just put all but one behind the cut.

Photos shouldn't be more than 700 pixels on the longest edge.  (So either 700 high or 700 wide with the other dimension being equal to or less than 700).  Please be considerate of people's load times.


WHAT DO I POST?

Themes will be broad ranging.  Some will be concrete (leg, bird, square) and some will be abstract (hope, dream, energy).  Feel free to think outside the box, but be reasonable.  "Leg" can be a table leg, a human leg, or the last leg of a race.  "Blue" can be a blue crayon, the sky or a child looking sad.  That said, people shouldn't be asking how your photo fits the prompt.  If the prompt is "Blue" and you show us a pair of red shoes most people will say that doesn't qualify.  Just because *you* know they were the shoes you wore when your significant other flew off to Antarctica for a year and you get horribly depressed when you look at them, doesn't mean anyone else will.  Don't depend too much on captions to explain your photo.

Ideally you'll take new pictures for this challenge, but if you just can't find anything 'green' where you live in Antarctica this month, and you really have to go digging through your vacation photos from last year when you went to Hawaii... well, it's not like I'm asking for the meta-data to prove your shots are new.  But try.

Any given shot can only be used once.  Ever.  So if this month we have the prompt "white" and you put up a shot of the White House in Washington D.C., you can't go using that same shot next November when the theme is "politics."

Prompts will be made as broad as possible to account for differing seasons in different locations, different holidays being celebrated by different people and cultures, etc... if I do post something that's just absolutely unworkable for you, please PM or email me to explain your situation so we can make arrangements.  I don't want anyone to feel excluded, but there's a chance that I may not think of something somewhere when I make a prompt.

WHAT MUST BE UNDER A CUT AT ALL TIMES?
Use good judgment, but a few things that we should spare sensitive/young eyes from:
• nudity
• images of violence or the aftermath of violence
• anything that you feel might be triggery for someone. 

If in doubt, use a cut tag.  Dreamwidth makes opening cuts fantastically easy (hit the little triangle next the the cut-text), so let's err on the side of caution.  Thanks.

Now, that said, you'll note that these things are not, in any way, forbidden.  The only thing that would be forbidden would be something that is illegal - like child pornography.



WHAT DO I GET?

If you get all 28 prompts posted before the 1st of the following month, you get a nifty little banner made from your favorite shot from the month.  You also get bragging rights and increased skills as a photographer.


DO I NEED TO BE A MASTER PHOTOGRAPHER OR HAVE dSLR CAMERA?
Absolutely not.  Use your camera phone if it's what you've got.

That said, I'd love to see this forum become a place for great feedback and con-crit.  It's not an attack when someone says, "Hey, do you know how to set the white balance on your camera or how to correct it in post?"  Clearly someone saw something they liked in your photo enough want to see you make it great.  [Seriously, one of my best days ever was when someone I was shooting with went, "Do you even know what white balance is?"]  Obviously being a toad is frowned upon and will result in the mod getting cranky; but helpful, useful discussions on the science and art of photography is encouraged.

That said, sometimes the best interpretation of a theme happens to hit you as you're riding along in a car at 60 miles an hour and you're trying to shoot on your camera phone as your friend weaves to avoid a deer, so the shot is a little blurry or crops really oddly.

I'VE GOT A QUESTION...
Feel free to contact me through Dreamwidth's PM system or email me at smallwaldo at gmail yadda yadda...



Special Themes:
Each month there will be certain special themes that will occur on randomly occurring dates.

"Song Title":  Use a picture to show the title to any song by any artist.  For example:

I might post this image:

As the song "Hungry Like the Wolf" (by Duran Duran).

If you want to make it a guessing game for a few days, feel free, but by the end of the month, you do need to add the title so that I can check it off on my masterlist.

"T.V. Titles": Use a picture to show one of the episode titles from a given show.
I'll post a link to all the episode titles of a show.  You need to take a photograph that could be titled by any given episode of that show.

For example, if the program is Stargate: SG-1
I could post this:


for "Serpent's Song".

Don't worry if you've never seen the show in your life.  Basically on that day, instead of having one prompt you'll have a list of 100 prompts to chose from.  You don't need to connect your photo to the show in any way.  If the episode title is "The First Ones" you can have any "first somethings" you find. The first flowers of spring, the first three cups of coffee you had that day, the first ten dollars you earned on your new job... whatever.  Again, if you want to you could make it a guessing game for a few days, but please, by the end of the month, let *me* know what you were thinking of.

Movie Night:
Pretty much the same as above, just using movie titles.

This guy:

Could be "The Lion King".