It was in October, 2000 that I received a thank you letter from a young fan following a fund raising presentation in my Nova Scotia, Canada, hometown. My presentation partner, the highly respected and acclaimed landscape photographer, Daryl Benson, and I were able to raise sufficient funds that night to install new playground equipment at the elementary school.
It was a letter from then six-year old Breanna that created the name for this store. She wrote: “Thank you very much for raising the money for the school. I love all the pictures you took. You are a great pictureologist!” That letter remains a prized possession and shares space in my “tickle trunk” alongside a note from the timeless and epic Douglas Kirkland, and other mementoes collected from travels around the planet.
By Breanna’s measure, I concluded, that if I am a pictureologist then I must surely work in the field of pictureology.
And so, 15 years later, that most treasured letter is the genesis behind the name of this store – an online shop which will strive to provide the necessary tools for the earliest, antique, forms of pictureology.