A shop with one person in it.
Which is the only thing here that can't be copied.
My story
My name is Lingzi. I photograph places and write about them afterwards. Cards were not the plan.
What happened was that I kept trying to send one. A few times a year, to people who live a long way from me. And every year I ended up in the same place — a site with four thousand templates, none of which looked like the person I was sending it to. I would give up somewhere around the third page and send a photograph of a flower instead.
The tools were never the problem. They could make a thousand cards. The problem was that none of them knew what I wanted, and neither did I, not in words. I only knew it when I saw it.
So this shop starts at the other end. You look first. If something here makes you stop, the decision is already made — the rest is a photo and a name. Nothing is generated on demand, because I don't think that's the hard part. Choosing is the hard part, and I've done it already.
I still photograph and write about where I've been, at lingzikong.com. Different thing entirely — same eye.
What gets in
One test: I have to want to send it to somebody. Not would this sell — would I put my mother's face in it and post it to her.
Most of what I make doesn't get that far. It's still on a drive somewhere, and that's where it stays. Twelve cards is not a small library because I'm slow; it's a small library because most things aren't good enough to give away.
Every card here has been run through other people's faces before it went up — children, someone in their eighties, glasses, a photo taken badly indoors. If it only worked on the person I had in mind, it isn't here.
They're made with AI tools, directed and edited by me. The judgment is the part I'm selling — and that part isn't automated.
Contact
Stockists, magazines, brands, other illustrators — if you've been turning something over, put it here.