It was several months ago that it began. Late one night, as I made a routine check of my e-mail, a new message appeared with the subject "photographer," and it brought with it a rather hefty attachment of files. The address indicated that the message had come from a "jbh" in Guangzhou, China. As it happens I have a friend with those same initials, and as it happens he is a photographer who went off several years ago to work in Asia. The message read simply: "Mr. beardsley How are you." That "Mr. beardsley" was particularly puzzling because it occurred to me that my old friend would never have been so formal, not even long ago when he was my student.