Join Me in Starting a Weekly Fstoppers Photo Theme

When what seemed like half the photographers in the United States posted a photo to the #SolarEclipse2017 hashtag, it gave me an idea. Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook all allow for fairly organic public searching of hashtags and a lot of our Fstoppers readers are active on one, if not all of these sites. Our article featuring an Instagram hashtag guide was one of the most popular of the year. Now on a regular basis, Fstoppers readers have a chance to get their work featured based on what is produced instead of likes on a photo, or how many followers they might have. Let's do this.

Google+ was at one point a booming place for weekly photo themes. There were calendars made with 20+ themes you could pick from with all the users assigned to look for posts called curators. I was on a team that hosted leading lines Monday. It was basically just people photos featuring leading lines, a very popular and effective composition enhancer, on Monday of each week. Other themes I posted to were monochrome Monday, transport Tuesday, wordless on Wednesday (are you seeing a pattern here?), and Fridays were for bokeh using the gibberish "bokehlicious" hashtag. Search worked great and people would regularly frequent any users posting to the themes.

For continuity sake, and to make sure we don't end up with 10 milky way shots every time because who doesn't love those well-executed space shots, there will be a weekly prompt. Sometimes we will use specific themes like fog, waterfall, or eyes. Other times it might be more abstract like color, emotion, or stark. For this round, we will go with "leading lines," a favorite of mine.  It can be your favorite photo, a shot you want to be seen, or just your latest work. Just make sure it features the use of leading lines.

Here is an example:

The way the road leads the eye to the subject of the photo make this an effective use of leading lines.

See if you can spread the word to people you think might enjoy it. Sometimes the smallest excuse to get out and shoot is all the is really needed. Not to mention if we could get this to really be a thing, that would be pretty cool for all of us.

I will start putting an article together once we have a solid sampling of users submitting so the sooner your jump on board the better. The early participants will certainly have a head start and a solid chance to make the site. Please try not to post more than one a week just to keep things fair to those with less available time. All submissions should be your original work.

The hashtag to use is: #weeklyFstop

This week's theme is: leading lines.

Before printing up the 10-foot banners, I went ahead and checked all the social media searches. Looks like we lucked out. There is nothing posted on Instagram yet.

As of right now, there are no posts on Twitter.

And even though I was sure I wouldn't be able to get a good screenshot on Facebook because I haven't used hashtags there much, I was able to easily see there are also no posts yet.

If you go right now and make a post, there will be results and the fun begins! Here are live links:

#weeklyFstop on Instagram

#weeklyFstop on Twitter

#weeklyFstop on Facebook

Get shooting if you can. Find an old shot if you can't. But either way, I look forward to seeing some great photos from our readers. Part of the photo theme experience is making the rounds and checking out all the other work posted so make sure you don't just post without looking.

Expect a regular list of 10 photos unless we are over or under whelmed any given week. I doubt it will ever be the latter. Good luck and let's have some fun. We had a lot of discussions internally about whether we wanted to make the tag sequential with a number like weeklyFstop1, weeklyFstop2, etc. For now, I'm going to stick with the pure tag. If we need to add numbers we will.

Please note there is no guarantee posting a photo will result in it being featured. If we get going and you fall short keep shooting and try and learn from the photos that are selected. We can all learn to like our work a little less sometimes in order to grow. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas feel free to contribute in the comments.

While you are dropping your name in the hat, are you all aware of the ongoing Fstoppers Photographer of the Month contest leading up to the Fstoppers Community Photographer of the Year? Alex Cooke covers how to be selected at the bottom of the above post.

Speaking of the Fstoppers community are you part of it? Did you know you can have your own portfolio here with chances to be featured on the homepage as photo of the day? If not be sure to check it out. If you already comment then you have an account. If not use the sign-up button and upload some work!