The Mock Dock

So listen!  Today was a banner day for photos.  First, Holmes sent me some pictures of people who should not ever ever ever be allowed NEAR spandex, let alone wear it.  Behold:

So first there was that.  And THEN, an alert and astute mockdocker sent me several submissions for the FAIR CONTEST!  So it’s ON, you guys.  You need to get in the game, so that you can compete for the big prize.  If you’re at a fair, or fair-like event, you need to be ready to capture mock-worthy subjects, and then you need to email them to me, and then there will be a vote and prizes will be awarded and it’ll be all sorts of fun.

And THEN – another alert and astute mockdocker sent me a link to a fabulous new site called www.peopleofwalmart.com.  And it’s fabulous because, similar to The Mock Dock, it’s got a collection of photo submissions of mock-worthy people.  Only that site’s differentiator is that all of the mock-worthy subjects are Wal-mart shoppers.  Whereas I, on the other hand, prefer equal opportunity mocking of people in every possible place.

Still – it’s a hilarious site.

If you are a fan of The Mock Dock on facebook, then you know by now that I have ordered the Shake Weight, and expect it to arrive sometime next week.  I will take photos and perhaps video, UNLESS….when I use it the flab on my arms starts flapping around like I’m some sort of rabid bat.  If that happens, you may be stuck with just a still picture.  Or perhaps I’ll have Mini-Mock demonstrate its use. 

IT’S  COUNTY AND STATE FAIR TIME!!!!  The fair photo contest officially starts………………….NOW.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to attend however many local/state fairs you want to this summer, armed with a camera, and take pictures of the oddest, most mockworthy people you can find.  BUT, there are two rules about that:

1. To the extent possible, photograph these poor unsuspecting people from behind.  If you get a front shot, either blur the face before you send it to me, or crop it out entirely.  Or, just know that I probably WILL if you don’t do so beforehand.
2. Only contribute a photo that YOU YOURSELF have taken.  No fair just looking up photos on line and submitting them as your own.  

This is a contest, which means there are prizes.  We’ll have a grand prize and a runner-up 2nd place prize.  Prizes will be awarded based on a playoff system.  So basically, once the contest deadline expires (sometime in mid September), I’ll start posting your photos, probably in groups of 10 or so.  You’ll vote on the best photo (“best” being purely subjective and totally up to you) in each group.  Then we’ll take however many semi-finalists there are and put them in another group to vote on, until we get to the final five.  The top two who win in that final round are the prize winners.  Each time a group of photos is put up for voting, voting will stay open for at least one full week before the next group is put up.

At least, this is my plan so far.  I’ve never organized a contest before, so if you have a better idea, that I can actually figure out how to do with my limited technical expertise, I’m open!  I entertained the thought of different categories of winners (most heinous outfit, biggest landbeast, etc) but frankly I think that’s more than I’m capable of.  So we’re just going to vote for “best” – whatever that means to people.  To me – it means most mockworthy and most giggle-inducing.  Just fyi.

SO!  You can start submitting photos at any time to my email, and I’ll be collecting them between now and September 4th.  For those of you in states which hold fairs in September and October, we’ll do a fall edition of this contest as well. 

I’ve had an enormously generous mockdocker donate a fairly sizeable amount of money to be used for prizes, but since I will need four prizes when the summer and fall contests have run, I’m sending you all a pathetically desperate plea to donate a teeny tiny amount of money if you can using the DONATE button in the 3nd column of the main page.  The more money I can raise, the better the prizes will be.  If you’re a winner, you obviously need to be ok about sharing your address with me (privately of course) so that I can ship your prize to you!

HOW MUCH FUN is this going to be?  I love fair photos.  YAY!