Flickr reopens huge Creative Commons photo collection.

Flickr, the remarkable public photo-sharing service, has reopened its archive of Creative Commons' licensed photos. Over a million photographs of all kinds released under Creative Commons' licenses, which allow people to copy and use them in various ways, subject to certain restrictions. Via the Creative Commons weblog. They interviewed Flickr about a year ago on the subject.

If you love photos you'll love this site. Flickr has come out of nowhere the last year or two, and they're doing awesome, beautiful work. And if you're interested in people sharing definitely check out what Creative Commons has been doing.






The Children of Iraq.

Heartbreaking collection of photos of Iraqi children here. Warning: the ones toward the bottom are rather graphic. Really a must-see, if you don't mind having your heart broken.

Via Zona Europa, a portal for various European media. I'd never been there before, but they sure have a lot of links. Including the most amazing list of European newspapers I've ever seen.

They also have a sister site, Zona Latina for Latin American sites. Their list of newspapers is also quite impressive.






History of the camera and photography.

Noting that Kodak has announced that it will stop producing the common 35 mm cameras, and observing that digital cameras are pretty much replacing traditional film photography, the Guardian runs a special article on the history of cameras and photography, going back to its very beginnings. Lots of links there.


Curiously they don't mention the Polaroid Land camera, which was invented by Edwin Land, one of the most creative scientists and inventors of the 20th century. But the photography industry has always hated the Polaroid, since it eliminated the need for people to pay Kodak and other companies to develop their pictures. Originally refused to produce it at all, and forced Land to start up his own company to do so. But in the they managed to kill it, or at least stop any serious further development of it.

For those interested in both the history of photography and that of corporate efforts to stymie the development of products that threaten their bottom line it's a fascinating story. Here's a Google search on him with many links. Here's a Wikipedia article. Land also developed filters for polarizing light, and while at MIT pioneered the use of the long-range cameras used in satellite photography. An absolutely brilliant man no one hears about much.


That quote is from this article, a review of "Insisting on the Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land," an attempt at a biography of him by Victor K. McElheny. Apparently there's not much available on him because he never kept a journal and his personal papers were destroyed on his death. Too bad.






The Other Side - Twisted animations.

The Lazy Guide to Net Culture led me to this utterly ridiculous site full of silly animations, most with a very definite attitude. Someone named Mata with the matazone. Flash required.


Don't miss The Ace of Spaces - A singing kitten animation, the first full length flash music video I've ever seen. Pretty trippy. Woman in an Office is also rather interesting.

This is a nice way to display old photographs. And this is sick, sick, sick.

This art is definitely advancing. Lately I've seen some beautiful pieces of work.



Lazy Guide to Net Culture: Random personal pictures.

Via the Scotsman, and a good example of why it's one of my favorite sites, is this ongoing series, Lazy Guide to Net Culture. This one focues on people's personal pictures. Quotes by Stewart Kirkpatrick.


Quite a few more links there. Even better are these random picture generators.


Warning: you can waste a lot of time looking at these. I've resisted for the most part so far, but there are some talented people out there.

Luckily I don't have a digital camera yet, or I'd be doing it myself. I've seen a lot of beautiful country lately. It'd be nice to wander around and take photos and put them up. Pretty soon it'll be possible to do it entirely wireless from almost anywhere.

A couple sites they don't mention, but which are two of my favorites for photos are: burningbird.net, from the American midwest, I think, and Andrea's site, from Germany.

Add: Just checked out photoblogs.org a little. Like I say, you could waste a lot of time, they have a LOT. The first one I tried, George Bailey's Nature Images, was beautiful. Incredible colors. So is this one, Digiteyesed Photography, by Sean David McCormick.

I can't believe some of these photo sites. I've done some sites, and it takes a lot to build sites of this kind of complexity, especially involving lots of graphics that must load quickly. Impressive. And photographers seem to possess the ability to focus on detail that also makes great sites.






Extraordinary images at Dublog.

Via Booknotes. Absolutely extraordinary images and links by Chris Waltrip over at Dublog. All different kinds. Some photographs, some computer art, all different.






What beautiful photos.

Shelley Powers over at Burningbird sure does take some beautiful nature photos.

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