Announcing Cazort.net Photos

In case you wonder why I have not updated this blog in some time, I have been putting my efforts elsewhere for the time being.  One of these projects has been a photo album section which I added to Cazort.net.  Here is a screenshot of how the photo album looked earlier; I have since improved the formatting so that it looks a bit neater:

Thumbnails in Cazort.net's Photo Galleryaa

The photos on the site are classified by a system of tags, like this blog.  This enables a given photograph to be listed in multiple albums.  Within each album, the photos are classified by time and date.

I have included photos going back to when I obtained my first digital camera, in 2002, and the albums including pictures from three separate digital cameras, and from numerous different places I have lived and visited.

My motivations for creating this photoalbum are twofold:

• I have published photos online for a long time, through a number of different websites.  Recently I had been uploading a lot of photos to Facebook.  Facebook benefits financially from the photos that I upload, through serving advertisements on pages containing my photos, and indirectly through the additional usage and traffic that is generated by my friends and other interested people viewing the photos.  Since taking, formatting, and uploading photos takes considerable time and effort, I wanted to reap the full benefits of my own photography rather than having a corporation profit off my own work without providing me with any compensation.  This motivated me to publish more of my photos on websites I control, rather than on websites owned or controlled by corporations.
• When publishing on Facebook and other websites, the photos are naturally integrated with and cross-linked with other pages on the site (Facebook, or whatever site you are using).  I would rather my photos be cross-linked and integrated with my own work, writings and articles, and other websites that I choose on the basis of trusting or wanting to support.

Like this blog, the photo album serves the purpose of a sort of activism.  Each photo has not only a title and caption, but an extended written description, and, in some cases, a full-sized article.

These descriptions and articles explore many different topics, but like this blog, many of them focus on sustainability, culture, ecological relationships.  In the new photo albums and on the rest of Cazort.net, you will find the same sort of integrated approach to science, psychology, politics, culture, religion, and other topics that you find on this blog.  You will also find the same positive, problem-solving, action-oriented approach.  Many of the photos on the site are not intended to have artistic value, but rather, are intended to move or draw people to action.

My philosophy of photography:

I am not among the most talented photographers visually, but I do believe that I have something unique to offer in the political, cultural, and ecological interpretations to my photographs.  When I take photos, I do not want to create art.  I want to document and share the world as-is, and as I see it.  And I want to communicate my interpretation of how I see the world, and my understanding about the world.  For example, I do not want to engage in nature photography so much as I want to engage in ecological photography, and I want this ecological approach to extend to the way I photograph and write about my photographs of the urban, suburban, and rural environment, including not only how I view agriculture, gardens, and landscaping, but also buildings, infrastructure, public spaces, and people.

Often, when I go through my daily life, I see numerous potential points of action or activism that could easily solve certain societal problems or result in tangible benefits or improvements to society or communities.  By sharing my thoughts on the objects and events and sights I see in my daily life, I want to give others ideas and empower them to make a positive difference in the world in ways that they may not have thought of.  I also want to share my knowledge on topics on which I have knowledge that is accessible but not held by the general population.

I invite you to visit this new section of my website:

Please do check out my new photo section of Cazort.net.  You will find a particularly large section of photos of produce, photos of plants, and photos taken in Philadelphia.  The pictures of produce often are paired with discussion of the use of the various fruits and vegetables in food.

I have no idea what direction this photo section of the site will take in the future, but I invite you to check it out and come back periodically over time as I continue to add new material.  I still have thousands of pictures that I have not yet uploaded, so I will be adding not only new photographs but numerous photographs I took in the past as well.