Pictures with a Story - The 200 Plus Membership / 3500 Plus Photo and Story Milestone Post

These days a lot of my Flickr energy is taken up by the #52weeksofWE Windsor-Essex photography challenge that I am hosting. The reason why this has taken up more of my time is because: A. It requires me choosing and designing a weekly challenge; B. shooting at least one theme inspired photograph per week; and, C. it feels more like a real world community building thing.

However, hosting the Pictures with a Story #Flickr group (started back on January 25^th, 2014) has been a great experience. Much of the early days was spent browsing through huge Flickr groups with lots of submissions and inviting those photographers who included stories, poems, context in text with their photos to join the group. Many would, and as of today – April 10th, 2015 – there are 201 members. I cannot tell you how many are actively contributing, but I would say that at least 25 submit something at least once every couple of days. As with anything, some contributors who were regular in the early days I don’t see anymore, but they are replaced with new people who like to tell the stories of, or inspired by, their photographs.

Unfortunately, these days I do not have a lot of time to read the stories. More often than not I will spend some time browsing through the shots, “faving” the ones that conform to the rules and “Xing” the ones that don’t. I do want to say that there are some incredibly beautiful / inspiring / enlightening / informative / amusing stories attached to portraits / landscapes / wildlife / urban / rural photographs coming from New York / Durban / Oakville / etc that are worth reading / looking at. I can tell you it is a great group to be a part of, especially if you have the time to read and comment in a meaningful way with your fellow storytellers.

I had started up the #52weeksofWE photography challenge because I found that I wasn’t taking pictures. Life has a tendency of doing that to you, doesn’t it? Now I am taking many more pictures and really working on new skills in a self-teaching, very amateur way.

I would like to do something similar with this group. It will not be on a weekly basis for sure. It may not even be on a monthly, or bimonthly basis. However, I would like to recognize and celebrate some of the regular, and indeed, irregular contributors to Pictures with a Story through my blog. So you may be receiving a message from me at some point, requesting that you send some picture files and stories to my email address: essex.masqueATgmailDOTcom, so that I can feature some of your fantastic work and stories. I am also open to people contacting me with requests to be featured. 

Pictures with a Story has been an even greater success than I could have hoped. Thank you muchly to all of you have joined in on the storytelling and photo sharing.
(All photos featured are my own. Future posts will hopefully feature contributors to Pictures with a Story)