Photographs, when words are too much

There are days when writing anything is the hard part. You would like to be in touch with somebody and the sentence will not come, and the effort of finding it is enough to make you close the tab.

An album is the version of being in touch that does not need a sentence.

Nothing here has to be about anything

The albums on this site are mostly gardens, dogs, weather, a good sunset and somebody's lunch. There is no theme, no caption required, and nothing that has to be significant.

That is half of what makes this place a nice one rather than a waiting room. Somebody having a rough month should be able to look at another person's tomatoes without that having to mean anything at all.

Three levels, and you choose each time

• Members. Anybody signed in here can see it. Never the open internet and never a search engine.
• People you name. One person at a time, chosen by you, and nobody else at all.
• Just you. A private album is visible to its owner and to nobody else on the site.

Most people use the first for the dog and the second for anything that is actually about their life. Both are ordinary and neither needs explaining.

Taking it back happens straight away

This is the part worth understanding, because it is where most sites quietly disappoint you.

When somebody opens one of your photographs, the question of whether they are allowed to see it is asked again, right then. It is not decided once and written into a link that keeps working afterwards, and the browser is told not to keep a copy.

So if you decide at midnight that an album should be yours again, it is yours again at midnight. There is no cached hour to sit out and nobody to ask.

There is no public address for a photograph

The store the images sit in has no door onto the open internet at all. It has no address of its own and no public access, and the only route out is a page on this site that asks first whether you are somebody who may see it. If you are not signed in, there is nothing there to find.

Search engines are told not to index any of it, but that instruction is the belt rather than the braces. The reason a photograph of your kitchen cannot be found by a stranger is that there is no way to fetch it.

A photograph is a real message

If somebody has been kind to you and you cannot think what to write back, letting them see an album is an answer. So is a single picture of what the sky was doing. It is not a lesser version of a sentence, and it does not need an apology attached.

The usual honest limit applies here as everywhere: this is not a helpline and nobody here is a professional anything. If today is heavier than a stranger's kindness can carry, there are people who can help properly.