My first full month at Ipernity has been a rewarding one. The people—welcoming longtime members of Ipernity and contacts who migrated from Flickr—have been wonderful. They have made it a special community. The Ipernity team has been highly responsive during the extraordinary period of transition that has been underway, always helpful and informative.

The photos give Ipernity a distinctive feel. From magical abstracts to colorful butterflies, from delicate floral detail to soaring mountains, from exquisite textures to creative architecture, and much more, Ipernity has demonstrated that beauty transcends time, language, and national borders. Beauty is everywhere and anywhere. One need only look and one is sure to find it.

Even more remarkable, that beauty can never grow stale. The world is dynamic. Nature’s seasonal rhythm goes on uninterrupted. Landscapes are invented and reinvented continuously. One day the landscape is aglow with a dazzling rainbow of color from all kinds of flowers; one day it is lush green amidst long days and unforgettable sunsets; one day it is colored in reds, golds, yellows, and browns; and, one day it is cloaked in a soft mantle of white, many of its distinctive features having disappeared in the midst of countless falling snowflakes.

That timeless and limitless beauty is not confined to nature, alone. It is found in architecture, cultural events, paintings, and more. Every country and culture and every person, too, offers something unique and rich. And human creativity adds a further limitless dimension to the beauty all around us. A small taste of that beauty is on exhibit in Ipernity’s growing collection of photos.

As the world is so vast and time so limited (at least the human life span and all of its subunits—school, work, family, shopping, leisure, etc.), no single person can capture even a meaningful slice of that beauty. That such beauty changes on a continual basis makes such a task futile.

Yet, thanks to technology (transportation, the Internet, cameras, computers and tablets, to name just a few breakthroughs), barriers to that beauty have eroded. Photos can bring a taste of that beauty to anyone who is truly interested in finding it. Ipernity serves an invaluable role in the sharing of that beauty.

All said, my first full month here has been a good one. It has built some great memories.

A great big merci/thank you to all.