Friday, December 20, 2019

2019 Looking back – themes and competitions


One of my goals at 365project for 2019 was to be more “intentional” about entering themes and competitions.  While I’ve frequently entered these challenges, it’s only been when I notice them. I decided to pick a few, and make an effort to enter the regularly.  To that end, I reviewed Wendy’s S-list, and selected 9 ongoing challenges to focus on.   And, being an engineer, I made a spreadsheet.  

Here’s the list of 9 challenges for 2019.  Sorted by frequency of entering:

Note, these are not the only challenges I’ve participated in, but I did follow and stress these 9.
So, how’d that work out?  Well, through today (12/19), there were 102 editions of these challenges (8.8 challenges of the 9 topics).  And I had at least 1 entry in 82 of them, an 80.4% participation rate.  I entered 100% of the Song Title challenges, and also had over 90% participation for EOTB, ETSOOI and Landscape.

I don’t have numbers for 2018 (or earlier) but I’m confident it was MUCH lower.

And since I tracked it, I can tell you that I made finalist in 41.5% of the challenges I entered, and I had at least 1 finalist in every category except "abstract".  I only had 3 wins (3.7% of entered), though.  Frankly, I can live with those numbers.

So, what does this mean for 2020?  Well, I think I’m going to continue the program, but tweak the stable.  Here’s my list of challenges to focus on for 2020. (keeping it at 9 for consistency)

  • Scenes From the Road
  • Album Cover Challenge
  • Edit The Stuffing Out Of It (ETSOOI)
  • Song Title
  • Eye Of The Beholder (EOTB)
  • What Would You Do (WWYD)
  • Black and White
  • Technique
  • 365project Monthly Theme
Each of 3 additions are challenges I’ve participated in, at least occasionally.  And it seems odd that I didn’t pick Black and White last year…   The three I’m dropping (Landscape, Minimalist, Abstract) are ones where I just didn’t seem to be enthused.  I’m sure I’ll still enter each of them all along, just not as a focus.




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