We'll be there to observe the process in preparation for submission of an application for a Certificate of Appropriateness. (We shouldn't need do hoop-jumping to discover what that process is -- but the City's online documentation is, if complete (and we have no way of knowing what isn't there short of comparing the online to the meatworld library in person) not very usable. Most of the documents I want to use are in image-format PDF files, and I don't read fast or retain well enough to transcribe the pertinent bits of the well-over-300 pages of documents.
"Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size."
I would label myself OTSOM (On The Shoulder Of Midgets) if I thought anyone would understand. We stand on those less lofty shoulders, too.
Major influences: my Dad -- Milton "Hal" Halberstadt. Dory Lange, Ansel Adams. Ed Weston, Bernice Abbot, Bill Garnett, Eugene Atget, O.Winston Link...
I've been in front of, behind, and inside cameras (yes, inside: Pop had a 20"x24" Deardorf camera in the studio -- Later on we would blackout windows to turn whole classrooms into pinhole cameras -- getting 20 foot wide film was an issue, tough) all my life.
I'd like to say I've been a pro since I first put my toes in the developer pool way back in 1970, but that would be a lie. I get discouraged with all my passions fairly regularly, if not frequently.