A group of intrepid first-time beard growers set out in November to grow for charity. Click on the photo above for the story and comments on the experience from some of the beard growers.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year 2010 to all!
If not, start growing! Now is the time.
The gallery views counter hit ten million at 7:41 PM PDT on October 25, 2009! Which was the prize-winning ten-millionth photo? Well, Dave wins another one:
Click on the photo above to see the larger, gallery version. One of Dave’s photos was the winner at nine million views, too. Thanks again, Dave, and all of the visitors to beards.org!
UPDATE: I should add, of course, sincere thanks to all of the participants in the beards of the world gallery, too!
I frequently hear from new beard growers who are intimidated about letting their new beards grow much beyond the stubble stage. Fear not. Carry on. Let it grow. Too often, they express fear that a beard growing longer than stubble will be too long! These fears are unfounded. With a new beard, your self-perception is altered. The thought of going beyond stubble may terrify you, with visions of presenting a monster beard. A monster beard — or simply one that you feel is too big or too long — requires going far beyond stubble. Ease up. Don’t worry. Don’t stop growing.
If you’re growing a new beard, don’t stop before you’re done. Don’t stunt your new beard. Let it grow beyond the stubble without fear. Let it grow out, fill in, and blossom. Give it a fair chance.
A beard beyond stubble length is more of a real beard. If the stubble beard is what you really want, then keep it at that length. But if you’re growing a new beard, don’t be afraid to go beyond stubble. Otherwise, you deprive yourself and others of seeing your fully-grown beard in all its glory.
So how long should you let your new beard grow? You don’t have to let it grow to the size of Rich’s beard pictured above. But you should get closer to his length than clinging to the stubble range. See how you like the way your beard shapes up after passing the stubble stage. You may be pleasantly surprised. Rich’s beard, above, clearly demonstrates that a fully-grown beard can appear neat and well-groomed.
Keep growing!
Thinking about growing a beard? Here is the first thing that you should know about making that decision: forget about whether beards are in fashion or not. Grow a beard because you want to grow a beard, not to follow a trend. If beards seem to be “in fashion”, that’s great. The more popular beards are, the better. Nevertheless, whether they are popular or not, grow your beard because it is what you want to do. That decision should never be dictated by the whims of fashion.
Click on photo for full image.
At 1:59 PM PDT on August 1, 2009, the view count for the galleries hit nine million! Which was the winning, nine-millionth photo? It was this one of Dave, in one of his rare goatee appearances:
Click on the photo above to see the larger, gallery version of the photo. Next up: ten million!
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!
Billy Mays photo used by beards.org is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at www.flickr.com.
Billy Mays unexpectedly passed from this life on June 28, 2009. Billy was a famous pitch man on television, enthusiastically selling a variety of products. Through his work on television and personal appearances, Billy Mays became a celebrity. Just as famous as Billy himself was his dark full beard. Billy demonstrated to the world that a full-bearded man could appear in advertising and achieve great success. For that, I say, “Thank you, Billy.”
