Like many of you, via friends' suggestions, I took a gander at their portfolios on Flickr, and, slowly going farther afield, again perhaps like you, became impressed by the breadth and beauty of the eye and heart of the participants here. Quickly, I became enamored with several artists' work, favorite-ing at an over-prodigious rate.

Now, unlike nearly all of you, my photographic talent is limited to a drugstore-bought camera and the willingness of friends to be parts of haphazard pictures. My digital scope is definitely limited to the 19th century, that is, nil.

I draw and I write. I make cartoons (recently, less so) and a kind of bricolage (likewise, recently more so). As far as photographs, I am not a critic. I am an enthusiast. From the coherence and associative power of your collective work, those I admire, I see that you have outstripped the need for physical-space galleries, though frankly, it would be mind-blowing to see your work in one space.

Again, like many of you, I would rather do than comment about myself (pehaps some of you have become itchy at many creative workshops at that point where you find yourself in a circle and introductions, life-goals [profiles] are made, which can be congenial and even revelatory to be sure, but usually I would rather learn about my cohorts through their work). I am breaking that kind of practice here.

I feel compelled to write this profile since I am not a contributor of pictures, and because I can see that

1) it is potentially invasive to have someone collecting favorites without having any images to trade and

2) sans profile, this can feel exploitative to members.

I make drawing-studies of your work when I can, so far at the rate of only one per 100 photographs. As I have mentioned to one of you, if you find the number of your work in my favorites slightly culled out one day, please do not feel insulted, it is not for want of admiration but for the sheer need to see your forest for my trees, if that makes sense.

I have been looking at your photos, at this point mid-February 2006, for slightly over a month, and it has been one my most formative visual experiences. Popular culture bandies about the phrase "formal" or even "official beauty": I think, with as much rigor and austerity, prodigality and voluptuousness, elaboration and elegance, I prefer the unofficial examples that in a fulsome degree reside here. Thank you for the privilege of looking at your work. I look forward to seeing more. Please forgive my abrogating of the less-talk-more-photo imprecation here.