For six years I have wandered at random across the twelve-hundred-square-miles of Los Angeles, directed by the impersonal hand of chance -- the self thinning and spreading like spilled oil on water. For a day at a time, I become the stranger in the neighborhood, the outsider alone, the wanderer with a camera. In thousands of chance encounters with people in these random locations, the conversation's compass inevitably swings about and points to a single question: "Why are you here?" After all these times, I still start with a slightly surprised laugh and say, "Believe it or not, I'm here by chance." This essay is simply a slight expansion of that answer. To honor the people I have met, I will do my best to keep the explanation clear, complex, and interesting.

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