Building A Calendar

Each year I put together a calendar to raise money for Hope Haven Ministries in Kingsport.  Hope Haven is a Christian, interdenominational, non-profit ministry that reaches out to homeless men, women and children who may be impoverished economically, educationally, emotionally and/or spiritually.   Hope Haven doesn't receive any government funding or support from United Way.   Like all non-profit organizations they are in constant need of financial support to keep providing the services they provide in our community.   These calendars are one way you and I can support this ministry.

Photography and sharing photos is my hobby and I really enjoy putting this project together.   It's not a quick process and usually takes several days to get together 25 - 30 candidate photos.   This year I

1. Selected the 4,620 photos from past 12 months that are wider than tall (landscape orientation) to fit on the calendar pages.  Because I use Lightroom to catalog all my photos this took about a minute.  Would have been about a second but I had to remember how to do this.

   

   Saved From The Bit Bucket

2. I then narrowed the candidates down to 165, then 60.   If I thought it is a photo people might like to see on their wall for a month then I marked it as a candidate. This step took a while.  The interesting thing is I selected some photos that I had not touched since down loading from the camera.  I have a lot of these images on the edge between keepers and destined for the bit bucket.   Sometimes something that doesn't catch my eye when I first look at it turns out to be a favorite later, like the one on the right.  Click on it for a larger view.
3. With June and Holly's help and a couple days we narrowed down to 34.

Is this one in the top 13?

That's all I can do.  It's hard for me to pick any more to throw out.  After all,  I have eliminated 131 from my first list.  I am asking my friends to help me narrow the 34 down to 13 to go on the calendar.  So far 32 people have voted and I'm already seeing some trends.

• There is a clear front runner - 27 out of 32 have voted for this one.
• Two photos got only 2 votes each.  Doesn't look good for those two.
• There are three tied for 13th place with 13 votes each.
• There are two more with 12 votes each.

How many people would like a black and white photo on their calendar?

As you can see, one person's vote can determine which photos make it on the calendar and which ones are left out. 

The deadline for sending me your vote is Saturday, September 20.  

The winners get announced on Sunday the 21st.  Instructions for voting are on the September 5 blog post.  Drop me an email with your vote.   Oh and let me know if you're interested in buying a calendar.