Paul, I decided to write before reading what others have already said. Hopefully what I say hasn’t been trodden over already and what I say might be of some benefit to you.

I don’t know for sure your intent but by having each series of images begin with a quote you seem to be guiding me a bit on how to view the images. I don’t find it heavy handed and like the gentle prod. SDG 13 – After reading Thoreau’s comment and looking at the first image I have found myself smiling. I see the stop sign in the center of the image and think I need to stop, slow down and be open to what this image shows me. It’s more then just an intersection in some rural area. I’m thinking of Thoreau’s comments and am now trying to be more receptive to what I am viewing, what you have chosen to present me. I now look at each succeeding landscape with a more opened mind, trying to bring more to what I see then just the “gardeners view”. Thoreau makes me think of raw Nature, but your images show landscapes impacted and inhabited by humans. (even if there are none present) So as I look at each image in this series I am now thinking that you might be saying to me that there is plenty of the natural world around us, in human kinds every day existence and we just need to stop and take the time to appreciate what is there, every day, around each of us. We don’t need to wander into a designated wilderness area to get this appreciation. Although the last image might make me think this was taken in a wilderness or protected area. But by it being in this series of images I think instead there might be a little wilderness everywhere, if we just look for it, if we are receptive to it. I’m not sure if this was your intent or if this is just my personal baggage of viewpoints and experiences speaking here.
Well these are just some first impressions for what they are worth, or not ;)

Sure, hotlink protection helps. It does, however, break every page that people access using a translation service like babelfish or the google translation stuff. It turns out a fair number of the references to articles on my website are made from places overseas via such translation services. It’s a shame to cut off all those viewers.

In any case, eliminating the possibility of the hot link usage is actually a detriment. I’d rather have people hot link to images (because I can track them thru my logs, then, and see what sort of traffic they get). If you look at my copyright page, I show the code I prefer people to use – the image is a hot link to my website. When people actually do that (most don’t) I get a small but steady stream of traffic thru the link. That’s what I mean by getting ‘meager’ compensation.

Same thing from having the URL in the copyright border, although I can’t track it. I suppose I could have a forwarding URL… hmm. Might do that, although it would require reformatting all the images.

It’s quite easy to find fault with things. I could walk into any gallery or museum and quite easily find some point of view from which to trash everything there. Even the stuff I like. But why do that? I can only speak for myself, but when critiquing someone’s work I always try to find something to say that will be helpful to them in some way. And I try to present it in a way that doesn’t make them feel like they’re being attacked.

I’m not trying to tell you what to do. My hope is that you’ll come back and join in. But as part of the community that’s been forming here.

Result – a very barebones site – so we can concentrate on the content and not what the container looks like.

Actually I have retired as admin – Karl wanted things I don’t have time to deal with so I told him he could do them. Since he hasn’t done them I assume that means he doesn’t have time for it either.

It is time for me to concentrate on my studio. This site works great – everyone seems to be posting and commenting and we are moving forward. If there are technical problems I would be happy to fix them if I have time but I am not interested in setting or enforcing rules for how this site is to be used – to that I defer to Karl – as this was his baby to begin with.

I’m a bit behind in reading posts also but I’ll catch up eventually.

D. – I’m sorry you don’t feel welcome.

I guess I better stick to my buddies and banter only in-person. We do have a terrific time pushing each other a bit nearer the edge. (How could I have been so foolish to imagine the Trust I share with my friends would be shared here with people I do not know. Sorry about that.)

Good luck.

David (I chose D. to distinguish myself from the other David)