Random desktop pictures not very random

I selected desktop background to randomly use iPhoto pictures. Changes every minute.
Though I have thousands of pictures, it seems to "prefer" only a few events, and even within those events, certain 'clusters' of photos.
Not very random, it seems.
Any reason for this?

Welcome to Apple Discussions.
It may be a bad preference file. Move this file to your Desktop
/Users/yourname/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.screensaver.plist.
Then log out and back in, or restart.
Let us know.
-mj

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    Message was edited by: LarryHN
    Message was edited by: LarryHN

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