Concept of PhotoVolcanica.com

PhotoVolcanica.com

The name PhotoVolcanica is intended to reveal the main focus of the site and is a hydrid between English and Latin terminology, meaning something like "photo of the volcano". However, the site is also dedicated to the wonderful and diverse Penguins that increasingly struggle to survive in the face of overfishing, habitat loss, introduced predators, etc. etc....

Whilst initially based almost solely on images, parts of the site are now rapidly evolving in the direction of a highly illustrated encyclopaedia with extensive scientific referencing. The texts may be rather challenging for readers lacking a basic knowledge of technical terms, yet explanation of such terms is widely available on the internet and the interested reader should rapidly be able to grasp at least the core concepts. Specific volcanoes are introduced in a way that is intended to give an all-round view of their history, eruptive mechanisms and impact on man. Penguins species are described in a manner that is hoped to bring the viewer closer to an understanding of where and how they live and why many species are threatened. It is hoped that a greater understanding of Penguins may trigger readers interest in their conservation and that of other vulnerable or threatened species.

The site is presently free of advertising and it is hoped to cover costs by way of photo sales. Whether this will ever be achieved is questionable, but the interest of the many visitors to the site is reward enough to continue with its development.

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Although my photography has already been available online for a couple of years (see Links section), I felt that enough material was present to justify an own personal internet presence, which is not intended to replace, but rather to supplement the other websites. Thorsten Boeckels website, www.tboeckel.de has photos of mine embedded in various travel reports along with photos by Thorsten and other friends. Vulkanarchiv.de is a small german commercial stock photo website run by Daniela Szczepanski, where many of my pictures are already available along with her own pictures and those of several other photographers.

PhotoVolcanica includes a user-friendly interface for rapid viewing of images referred to as the "Pictureviewer". The pictureviewer is optimized for screens having a minimum width of 1280 pixels (this corresponds to the standard resolution offered for new monitors in germany in mid-2007). Although I am aware that many surfers have lower resolution screens, I wanted to provide pictures in a high enough resolution so that significant detail is made available to the viewer. This means allowing viewers to see selected images at a resolution of 900x600 pixels. If you have a smaller screen, you will have to horizontally scroll to see full images once you have selected them on the selection bar. Due to the size and quality of the pictures made available, the pictureviewer is slow loading on old 56k Modems.

The pictureviewer holds different portfolios of images, grouped according to topic. For example, the portfolios relating to volcanoes include, nighttime eruptions, daytime eruptions, lava, etc. Further pictureviewer portfolios are dedicated to (amongst other topics) Penguins, Moais, or Industrial Images. These sections reflect other things that I have found interesting during my travels. The Moai sections also show sculptures of Moais inspired by a visit to Easter Island. These sculptures are available for sale.

Volcano pictures are also made available in a simpler format (easily viewable with older low-resolution screens), sorted alphabetically by volcano name as opposed to topic. The photos are embedded in detailed text sections explaining eruptive history and characteristics of the various volcanoes.

The second main topic covered in PhotoVolcanica is penguins. Penguin Pictures are available either in the general Pictureviewer penguin section or by selecting specific penguin species from the list provided insofar as i have already photographed the species. It is intended to include all species in the coming years.