This is my entry to @juliank's #goldenhourphotography. Photo was taken using Nikon D5000. I was first aiming for the droplet of water. I did not notice the shape the light and shadow created. What do you see? Can you see the skull that crying or sweating?

Votes go to the grave

Have you read about dust votes? I first came to know about this through the Bubble Bursting post of @beeyou.

These are votes that will not amount to anything and will not be paid. Read more about it here in @tarazkp's blog about Ashes to Ashes, Votes to Dust. He explains that votes that are worth 0.001 to 0.019 will not be paid. We are talking about stand alone votes. If your post or comment has less than the threshold of 0.02, then you will not be paid. However, if you add a vote of 0.001 to 0.019 to a post or comment with with 0.02, then your vote matters. If your vote will not make it to 0.02 or higher, then your vote goes to the grave.

How do you know your vote's worth? Go to https://steemworld.org/@(insert your username name without parenthesis) or busy.org. You can sign in to busy.org with the same username here in steemit but use your active key and never your master key.

This means if your post or comment has 0.001 to 0.019 worth of vote, it will be rounded to 0.00. It means your vote is worthless. This a proposal to combat spammers as per @timcliff. Your votes should be at 0.02 or more to be paid.

Do you agree on this? What is your thought on this?

Read @artgirl's What Have You. Do you share the same sentiment?

The effect this dust votes has is disappointment especially in for new steemians. It is hard to earn VP and then there is the issue of bandwidth and now this. You have to be at 100% VP before your vote will even matter at a Steem Power of 100 or more (am I correct? Can someone verify this).

It's like we don't even matter anymore. Not everyone of us are spammers. Not everyone can afford to use bots.

Engage and Interact and hopefully someone will pity you and be kind enough to vote your post

It is important and I cannot emphasize this enough to post quality posts and comment with real thoughts and not just spam like "Nice post," "Upvoted and followed. Follow me," or anything else to that nature that does not give more thought about the post.

If you are to post pictures, tell something about the photo. What is the photo all about and why did you take it? It will not hurt to add a little line or two.

What's more, reach to the ones with higher reputations than you because if they vote your posts then your reputation increases. (Again, I need clarification on this)

Also, hope that they will follow you. For that to happen, your posts must be well thought of and not just spam. Exercise the practice of posting good posts. It does not have to be long but at least not spam or plagiarized.

Peter talked about busy.org and impact of followers on this post.

Where do we go from here

I suggest join contests. There are lots of different kinds of contests here that you can join. Do your best in making a post about it. Some don't require much especially in photography contest but again it would be interesting to write something about your entries. There are writing contests, how-to-contest, gardening contest, meme challenges, etc.

What is the importance of joining? This will give you visibility and also an opportune time to engage and interact with people you share the same passion. Some people I know ventured into joining some contests that they thought they could not do but they were able to do it. It is a learning process as well and discovering or re-discovering your skills and talents. If you don't win, don't be disheartened.

Just keep joining and have fun!

I keep mentioning about engagement. This is a social platform and one of the main objectives is to socialize.

Asher has a great contest of Engagement that you can join. This is war of keyboards lol! Meaning, you must socialize like you have never socialized before. Feel free to check it out and join. This is to encourage us to be good commenters. You will win SBD and delegated SP which will help to increase your SP and thus hopefully increase your voting power to avoid the dust vote zone.

Daniel on the other hand runs a weekly Comment Challenge wherein you can turn your comments into SBD and SP delegation if you win the contest. A post will be featured and in it you can comment. Your comment will serve as your entry to the contest. You can also vote @danielsaori as witness.

I urge you join contests to help you in being visible here in Steemit.

Superboy McCoy to the Rescue!

@davemccoy is here to help as he always does but for those with 59 reps and lower only. (Sorry 60s and higher). This is to boost your dust votes so it will not go to waste.

This means send him posts or comments with less than the 0.02 threshold and he will help in increasing that to reach the 0.02 or more. Please, no spam. Be sure that what you are sending him are quality ones.

Thanks @davemccoy for such an initiative!

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You can read more about @photocontests here.

The schedules for other categories for @juliank's photo contest are:

Monday: #foodphotography and #animalphotography
Tuesday: #landscapephotography and #cityscapephotography
Wednesday: #architecturalphotography and #vehiclephotography
Thursday: #macrophotography and #colourfulphotography
Friday: #streetphotography and #portraitphotography
Saturday: #sportsphotography and #smartphonephotography
Sunday: #goldenhourphotography and #longexposurephotography

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REMINDING YOU AGAIN TO BE CAREFUL AND PROTECT YOUR ACCOUNTS FROM PHISHING/SCAM.

HACKED - Don't be a victim by @magicalmoonlight
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Protect your ASS by @omitaylor
⚠⚠ WARNING FRIENDS ⚠⚠ by @johndoer123
PLEASE DON'T be the NEXT VICTIM of a PHISHING SCAM !! by @lynncoyle1