Tom's iFotoz

Tom's iFotoz is a legacy site of my photographic works. The site is designed to allow you to view the work on any device using your Internet browser. You can also access iFotoZ by downloading the iPhone/iPad or Android apps designed for your smartphone or tablet. iFotoZ.mobi is a leaner version of iFotoZ. It is automatically selected when using your smartphone or tablet browser app.

The iFotoZ images are presented without watermarking for all who register. Registration is free, but you must first agree to a lengthy set of iFotoZ Terms & Conditions. Basically, you are agreeing to respect my creative endeavor by not copying or reproducing the site or its contents without explicit permission.

The work is presented as gallery slideshows with music that are further collected into Series such as Globe Trotting or Social Landscapes.

The 140 plus slideshows with music are the main event of this site! Slideshows are available from the Galleries tab, the News Tab or from the Home Page. Clicking any Slideshow play button or link, opens the gallery window with two docks for customizing your slideshow experience. Clicking the Play icon in the middle of the image expands the window to full screen and begins the slideshow with images dissolving into each other and music playing in the background.

There are many ways to customize your slideshow experience. You may hide or show the docks, view a slideshow’s image thumbnails and jump to a particular image. You can favorite images or entire slideshows. You can use your keyboard space bar to start and stop the slideshow and the arrow keys to go forwards and backwards. Please take a few minutes when you first get to a Slideshow window to become familiar with all of your options or use the About tab How To link for detailed feature explanations.

The site is organized to enable you to navigate to a specific Gallery or Series of your choice. You can search the site by image, keyword, gallery, or series names. An exciting search feature is the keyword Cloud tab that gives you an overview of all the images in the site. Most search results can then be sorted by various criteria such as creation date.

Registration creates your own permanent account so you can do things like save favorite images. Those bookmarks remain a part of your user account so when you return they will still be there. There are many features that augment the user experience and allow you to navigate, save, manage, share, and order your favorite images. Users can even create their own slideshows from their favorites! In addition, by rating your favorite images you will be contributing to the creation of the dynamic Tom's iFotoZ portfolio slideshow that is available to all iFotoZ visitors whether registered or not.

Tom’s iFotoZ offers high quality prints, books, calendars etc. through competent online print services at very reasonable prices. Custom, archival, signed and even framed prints on fine art media are available upon request in sizes from 8 inches up to 27 feet (so far)!

 You can comment and rate my work and even improve the site's usability by suggesting keywords and adding your own comments. So please do rate what you like, leave your comments and, yes, please do share your favorites with your friends. 

Again, I hope you enjoy your visit to Tom’s iFotoZ. Please leave feedback and come back often!

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Tom Policano

Vinod Raut

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Tom Policano Artist's Statement:

I have always found the world to be a beautiful place. Time & Again I have endeavored to capture that beauty in my work. It has been my hope that in doing so I can share my joy with others. Though the work has taken many forms, the consistent theme of my legacy is the miracle confluence of time, place and light composed precisely in the image frame.

Time & Again refers to my practice of "seeing" that is at the core of making images. The art of recognition and framing a connection in the magic of the moment involves a rush of emotions that never repeats and yet is always the same. Zillions of possibilities resolve when I release the shutter. The craft of presentation is my medium for communicating and sharing both the rush and the magic with others. I am insatiable in this pursuit. 

I am often asked which photo is my favorite? Having owned forty plus cameras and a hundred thousand plus images later there is no one answer to this question. For Time & Again I am enraptured by the wealth of beauty around us and I am off again hunting - hoping I have the perfect setup to capture the perfect moment.

Artist Bioiography:

Tom Policano has been photographing since 1965 when he bought a Pentax SLR to celebrate going off to college at the University of Rochester for a BS in Electrical Engineering. There he studied with Bill Giles who lives in Marina, CA and is still creating large format images using traditional image processes. In 1969 Policano enrolled in the first class of the Visual Studies Workshop under Nathan Lyons and completed his MFA in Photography from the University of Buffalo. Upon graduation he started his own business, Tom Policano – Image Maker, doing documentary, social landscape, architectural, multi-image shows, as well as bread and butter work that included portraits and weddings. During this period, with the support of Beaumont Newhall, Director of the George Eastman House, Policano received a NYS Council on the Arts Grant to complete “Slim Pickin’s,” a multi image documentary of NYS migrant workers. In the summer of 1973 he studied documentary photography, bookmaking and the zone system with Ansel Adams in Yosemite National Park.

In 1977 he was hired by RIT as a professional staff photographer and a couple years later was invited to teach visual communications at RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf. After 37 years Policano retired from RIT with emeritus status. Policano was a very early adopter of digital photography. In 1998 he bought his first digital camera, a Nikon CoolPix 900S. He made this purchase the same day after inviting a Nikon rep to demonstrate their new digital technology in his photo class in RIT’s College of Imaging Arts and Sciences. Within two months of that event he had a one-person exhibition titled. “10 Atkinson Street.” This was a documentary of the Elizabeth Collection that is today housed in Rochester’s Aritisan Works. Included in this digital exhibit were four eight-foot prints, a seventeen-foot print, and a multi image slide show all from his new 2.1 megapixel camera. Within a few months he had sold his Hasselblad 2 ¼ and Sinar 4x5 Field Cameras. Policano’s largest print to date is the twenty-eight foot “Through the Glass Lightly,” an architectural study of NYC buildings as reflected in other buildings.

Within a year of converting to digital, Policano started teaching his three part DigPhoto workshops; Shooting, Managing, & Sharing. At this same time he created his first online gallery of his work. Today Tom’s iFotoZ (ifotoz.com) is a user centric portal that presents over one hundred forty full screen dissolving slide shows with music.

Policano has owned and experimented with over 40 traditional and digital cameras. Today he uses the Sony A9 camera system.

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At Tom’s iFotoZ, accessible at ifotoz.com, one of our main priorities is the privacy of our visitors. This Privacy Policy document contains types of information that is collected and recorded by Tom’s iFotoZ and how we use it. If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us through email at support@ifotoz.com. This privacy policy applies only to our online activities and is valid for visitors to our website with regards to the information that they shared and/or collect in Tom’s iFotoZ. This policy is not applicable to any information collected offline or via channels other than this website. 

Consent

 By using our website, you hereby consent to our Privacy Policy and agree to its terms.

Information we collect 

The personal information that you are asked to provide, and the reasons why you are asked to provide it, will be made clear to you at the point we ask you to provide your personal information

If you contact us directly, we may receive additional information about you such as your name, email address, phone number, the contents of the message and/or attachments you may send us, and any other information you may choose to provide.

When you register for an Account, we ask for your email address.

How we use your information

We use the information we collect in various ways, including to: 

• Provide, operate, and maintain our website 

• Improve, personalize, and expand our website 

• Understand and analyze how you use our website 

• Develop new products, services, features, and functionality 

• Communicate with you, either directly to provide you with updates and other information relating to the website, and for marketing and promotional purposes 

• Send you emails • Find and prevent fraud  

Log Files

Tom’s iFotoZ follows a standard procedure of using log files. These files log visitors when they visit websites. All hosting companies do this and a part of hosting services' analytics. The information collected by log files include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date and time stamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks. These are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. The purpose of the information is for analyzing trends, administering the site, tracking users' movement on the website, and gathering demographic information.

Cookies and Web Beacon

Like any other website, Tom’s iFotoZ uses ‘cookies'. These cookies are used to store information including visitors' preferences, and the pages on the website that the visitor accessed or visited. The information is used to optimize the users' experience by customizing our web page content based on visitors' browser type and/or other information. You can choose to disable cookies through your individual browser options. To know more detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers, it can be found at the browsers' respective websites. What Are Cookies?

CCPA Privacy Policy (Do Not Sell My Personal Information)

Under the CCPA, among other rights, California consumers have the right to:

Request that a business that collects a consumer's personal data disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal data that a business has collected about consumers

Request that a business delete any personal data about the consumer that a business has collected

Request that a business that sells a consumer's personal data, not sell the consumer's personal data. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us.

GDPR Privacy Policy (Data Protection Rights)

We would like to make sure you are fully aware of all of your data protection rights. Every user is entitled to the following:

The right to access – You have the right to request copies of your personal data. We may charge you a small fee for this service.

The right to rectification – You have the right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate. You also have the right to request that we complete the information you believe is incomplete.

The right to erasure – You have the right to request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions.

The right to restrict processing – You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.

The right to object to processing – You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.

The right to data portability – You have the right to request that we transfer the data that we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us.

Children's Information

Another part of our priority is adding protection for children while using the internet. We encourage parents and guardians to observe, participate in, and/or monitor and guide their online activity. Tom’s iFotoZ does not knowingly collect any Personal Identifiable Information from children under the age of 13. If you think that your child provided this kind of information on our website, we strongly encourage you to contact us immediately and we will do our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.

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Main Navigation Bar

• Home

Site welcome page contains the main navigation bar and a very slow changing slide show of recent images.

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• Info

This is a drop down menu with three links; About, Contact Tom and Music Contributors. The About page. It is organized into three areas; The Site, About Us, and How To. Any visitor, registered or not, can use the Contact Tom button to sne me an email. The Music Contributors screen lets you look up information about the guest musicians on Tom's iFotoZ with links to the galleries that use their music.

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• Galleries

The Galleries tab is only available to registered users. If you have not yet registered, clicking on the Galleries tab opens the Registration page. If you are not yet logged in, clicking on the Galleries tab opens the Log in page. Once logged in, clicking on the Galleries page opens to an animated Series coverflow graphic on top of the page that contains the thumbnail of the first image of the last Gallery to be added to each Series. Double click a Series thumbnail to access the Series description, a Back link that takes you back to the animated coverflow graphic, a View Series Galleries link that will display all the Galleries in the Series below the animated Series coverflow graphic, and a View Series Slideshow link that will take you to that Series Slideshow. Note that the main event of the site is to view Slideshows of the images. Slideshows are available for Series or individual Galleries. This is one way to get to a Series slideshow.

Below... (to be continued)

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• Comments

Lists all the comments added by iFotoZ users. Comments are listed with the most recent at the top. Comments are added from the image details pages. In Slideshow mode clicking the Image Information Button [i] in the upper right corner of the player at any time pauses the current Slideshow and open a window that includes a link to the image details page for the current image. Clicking the View Images button on the Galleries Page will open The View Images page that lists all the images in the Gallery selected. Every Image listed will have a View Details button that will take you to the View Image Details Page of the image selected. This page will have many options, including Add A Comment.

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• Rating

Organizes the images according to user star ratings. Any user can see a listing of images that have been rated 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 stars or see all rated images. You can add the ratings of images that you like from the images details page or from your favorites page. Any images that are given a 5-Star rating become eligible for the 5-Star Gallery. The 5-Star Gallery is available to any visitor to Tom's iFotoZ and is a collection of the images that have received the highest number of 5-Star ratings by registered users.

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• News

Here is where I tell stories about the work. News can be ordered by title name or date.

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• Cloud

One of the things I have always wanted to provide visitors, is a way to find images of interest. All images now have keywords associated with them. In fact, users can themselves recommend keywords for the images they see by going to the image details page. Anyway, the Cloud button sorts all the image keywords alphabetically. In addition the Cloud words grow bigger as more images share the same keyword. Each keyword is also followed by an exact count of the number of images sharing that keyword. Clicking on any keyword brings back a complete listing of all associated images. The listing includes an image thumbnail, image name, and the link to that images detail page.

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• User

This is a drop down menu with eight links; Profile, Order History, Bookmarks, My Cart, Send to Friends, Ask a Question, Change Password, and Change Email.

• • Profile

  Your account Profile holds your registration information and additional information you may choose to add that will enable order completion at Tom's iFotoZ. At any time you can update or change your profile info.

• • Order History

  Your account Order History gives you feedback on the status of your order at Tom's iFotoZ. It remembers any and all orders you make as well for future reference or reordering.

• • Bookmarks

  Tom's iFotoZ will contain thousands of images. I hope that some of them will be special to you. If so, you can bookmark these as your favorites. Bookmarks copy the image name, a thumbnail, and the link to the image details page where you can rate, comment, or find you way back to the Gallery or Series Slideshow that the image is a part of. Your bookmarked images will remain in your account Bookmarks until you delete them. Bookmarked images can be checked individually or in groups to Send to Friends, Ask a Question or add to My Cart.

• • My Cart

  Should you like the work you see enough to want to own it, use it for your own purposes, or to give it as a gift then you can use My Cart to make that happen. To add images to My Cart you must first Bookmark the images from the image details page.

• • Send to Friends

  If one or many images you see particularly resonates with you and you want to share them with a friend or friends, first add the images to your Bookmarks. Next open your Bookmarks, check the box by all the images you want to share, and select Send to Friends from the pull down menu to add them to the Send to Friends form. When you are done adding images, access the Send to Friends email form by clicking on the Send to Friends button. The Send to Friends email form will open and will include a table of the images you selected. The table will contain a thumbnail, file name and link to the image details page on the Tom's iFotoZ site.

• • Ask a Question

  The Ask a Question works just like Send to Friends except the email form that opens will be addressed to me. Open your Bookmarks, check the box by all the images you want to discuss, select Ask a Question from the pull down menu to add the images selected to the Ask a Question form. When you are done adding images, access the Ask a Question email form by clicking on the Ask a Question button. The Ask a Question email form will open and will include a table of the images you selected. Use this feature to make a personal inquiry or request. I will get right back to you.

• • Change Password

  If you forget your password, we will send you a new temporary one. You can then use Change Password to pick one you prefer.

• • Change Email

  Use this option to update your preferred email address.

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• Sign In

Sign In is enabled upon free registration and opens up access to the entire collection of very high resolution images organized into series and galleries slideshows with music. Sign In also gives you access to your account that will enable you to favorite, share, comment, rate, and order images, posters, books, calendars, etc.

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• Register

Registration is FREE! Registering creates your account and enables all the user capabilities of Tom's iFotoZ. The only condition of Registration is your agreement to a lengthy set of iFotoZ Terms & Conditions. Basically, you are agreeing to respect my creative endeavor by not copying or reproducing the site or its contents without explicit permission. Upon registration you will be sent an email that will validate your email and enable future Sign In. Your Sign In to Tom's iFotoZ is remembered if you check the Remember Me box when you first Sign In. For the iFotoZ Apps on your smart devices, your initial Sign In is remembered until you select Sign Out from the main menu.

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• Search

Search is lets you find images by name. You have the option of searching for an exact name(s) or for names that contain the search term you type in. As in all lists on iFotoZ you can Browse all the items in the results list.

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• Share

Share allows you to send a message that includes a link to Tom's iFotoZ using any of the services listed in the pop-up menu (SMS, Email, Twitter, Facebook, Gmail) or additionally any of many, mnay others should you chose the Add This option from the pop-up menu.

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Slideshows - Image Dock and Slideshow Dock

• Image Dock

The Image dock shows up when you first open a Sereies or Gallery Slideshowon the bottom left of the screen. It hides iteself when you select the Play Button in the middle of the slideshow image. The dock will appear again when the cursor is moved over the image area. The Image Dock gives you access to information and options related to the image on the screen as described below.

• image Name

This is the file name for the image being viewed. It is the actual name of the original photograph and is always in the following format: yymmdd_keyword(s)_### where yymmdd is the year-month-day the phot was captured, keywords include the image subject and location info and ### is the image number.

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• Image Info

The Image Info button opens an Image Details page that will show you a description of the image and allow you to Rate, Comment, Share, Favorite, and suggest Keywords for the current image without losing your place in the slideshow being viewed. While on th eImage Details Page the music will continue to play but when you close the pop-up Details Window you will return to the slideshow.

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• Favorite Image

The Favorite button in the Image Dock saves the current Image being viewed as a Favorite in your user account. Your can view and share your favorites from the User tab of the main menu on the website or from the App Main Menu in the upper right of your smartdevice screen.

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• Movie or Panorama

The Movie or Panorama button in the Image Dock goes live if there is a movie file or a panorama player associated with the current image. When selected the movie or panorama will play in a pop-up window which when closed will return you to the slideshow.

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• Comment

The Comment button in the Image Dock lets you add a comment that visitors to Tom's iFotoZ can read. Comments are accessed from the Comments Tab on the Main Menu Bar. Comments are reviewed for appropriate language before being posted.

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• Image Rating

The Image Rating button in the Image Dock allows you to rate the image being viewed. Ratings can be viewed from the Ratings Tab on the Main Menu Bar. Images that you have favorited can be Rated collectively from your favorited under the User Tab of the main menu on the webiste or from the manin Menu in the upper right hand corner of the iFotoZ apps.

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• Home

The Home Button in the Image Dock returns you to the Home Pageof Tom's iFotoZ.

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• Slideshow Dock

The Slideshow dock shows up when you first open a Sereis or Gallery Slideshowon the bottom right of the screen. It hides iteself when you select the Play Button in the middle of the slideshow image. The dock will appear again when the cursor is moved over the image area. The Slideshow Dock allows you to control how the slideshow will play as described below.

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• Series Name / Gallery Name

These menues show the name of the current slected Series and the Slideshow from that series that plays. If All Galleries is shown it means that a Series Slideshow will play all Galleries in the Series. Use these two drop-down menus to view any Series or Gallery slideshow available on Tom's iFotoz.

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• Slideshow Info

The info button in the Slideshow Dock will show you the Gallery description along with the name of the Series that the Gallery is a part of.

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• Favorite Series or Slideshow

The Favorite button in the Slideshow Dock save the current Series or Gallery Slideshow being viewed as a Favorite slideshow in your user account. Your can view and share your favorites from the User tab of the main menu on the website or from the App Main Menu in the upper right of your smartdevice screen.

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• Image Thumbnails

Shows thumbnails of all images in the Slideshow. Select any thumbnail to go directly to that image in the Slideshow and view or play on from that point.

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• Share

Opens a share screen from which you can send info with links about the Series or Gallery Slideshow currently being viewed.

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• Playback Controller

The Playback Controller allows you to swich the Play Mode between Manual or Auto, go to the Next or back to the Previous image, and/or change the Play Mode to Repeat, Single Play or Random Play. On the website you can use your keyboard Spacebar to switch the Play Mode and the keyboard Forward Arrow key to show the Next or Back Arrow key to show the Previous image.

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• Background Manager

Allows you to change the default background color for the current Slideshow.

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• Music Controller

Use this button to open the Music Controller. In this view you can control the music volumn or turn off the music completely. You can also change the song playing currently. If a song is available on iTunes there will be an iTunes icon to the right of the tune that will take you to the Song on Apple iTunes. iFotoZ.com is an Apple iTunes Affiliate Site. Click Ask a Question to recommend music you think would work well with a particular gallery.

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• Toggle Full Screen Option

The Toggle Full Screen button allows you to change to and from viewing the slidshows in full screen mode.

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• Home and Previous

Just above and on the right of the Slideshow Dock there is a Home button that returns you to the Home Page and a Back button that returns you to the previous page from which you accessed the Slideshow screen.

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