We’ve done it again!  We’ve got another million views on the gallery counter!  The thirteen-million milestone was reached sometime on the morning of July 4th, 2010.

We hit our previous milestone of twelve million gallery views back on March 31st, 2010.  Remember, however, that the gallery counter started at zero on January 26, 2006.  So we have had thirteen million views of photos in the gallery since January 26, 2006.

The number is a fun milestone to track, although the actual number of views is even larger.  Sadly, when some images leave the gallery, their view counts get subtracted.  That can whack off thousands from the counter at a time.  Also, when Salvatore’s beard videos were hosted in the main gallery, the overall view count was boosted substantially.  When I pulled the videos from the gallery (because they were using up all of the site’s monthly data transfer allowance), the overall count shrank some more, as well.  If all of the subtractions were added back, the true number would be quite a bit higher.

Regardless, each additional million makes for a good occasion to stop and reflect for a moment and express thanks to all of beards.org’s loyal fans, friends, and visitors.  It’s also a great time to thank and salute each and every bearded man who has joined the gallery.

I wasn’t at the computer when the counter hit thirteen million.  So this post is illustrated with a previously-unpublished photo of  Christopher.

Happy Birthday, USA!  And best wishes to all friends of beards.org around the world!

The number of views of photos in the beard gallery hit twelve million sometime just before noon Pacific Daylight Time on March 31st, 2010!  We hit eleven million views less than three months earlier on January 6, 2010.  The counter started at zero on January 26, 2006.  So the twelve million number represents only the number of views since January 26, 2006.  Thanks to all of our loyal fans, friends, and visitors, the site continues to grow.  We are experiencing some growing pains, but they are welcome.  They are a sign of great things yet to come.

I wasn’t at the computer when the counter rolled over to twelve million.  So this post is illustrated with a previously-unpublished photo of Tomas.

The gallery image counter hit eleven million views on January 6, 2010!  We hit ten million on October 25, 2009.  It would have been nice to hit eleven million before the end of 2009, but this is still close enough!  The eleven million number, however, only represents the number of beard views since the counter started from zero on January 26, 2006.

This time, I wasn’t at the keyboard to see which photo was number eleven million.  In consolation, I’m illustrating this post with a previously-unpublished photo of Christopher.

Great beards should be photographed.

The documentary beard project formally has a home on beards.org now.  The first photo album is that of Brian, starting out with twelve photos.  There will be much more to come — in Brian’s album and others.  Click on the image above to go there.

A friendly gentleman with an amazing beard used to run the Hess gas station in front of Manassas Mall in Virginia.  He kept the massive full beard pretty much all of the time, but occasionally would shave it off and commence re-growing it again right away.  One time when he was in the early stages of growing the beard again, I looked at his beard in awe and thought to myself that the beard growth was so dense and abundant, that it appeared to gush out from his face.  He was a beard gusher — an extraordinary sight, indeed!

I would guess that he has long-since retired by now.  I haven’t been to Virginia in many years.  Still, I’ll never forget the sight of that powerful beard.  Beards like his are rarely seen.  This makes an excellent case for documentary beard photography.  Great beards should be photographed!

Christopher will appear soon in the featured beards section. Meanwhile, here are some previews selected from the photos taken today.

You’ll be seeing a lot more of him here soon!