Google To Host 10M Images From Life Magazine's Archive 79
CWmike and other readers alerted us to Google's announcement that it was making available 10 million images from Life magazine's archives dating back to the 1750s. (Most of the news accounts covering this announcement refer to Life's "photos," and none mention that photography wasn't invented until early in the 19th century.) Only a small percentage of the images — including newly digitized images from photos and etchings — have even been published. The rest have been "sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints." At this point about 20% of Life's archive is online; the rest is promised within months.
Re:Public domain? (Score:3, Insightful)
I also noticed that when you click on the picture, you get the 'real' full res picture. However, the full res picture has a big ugly 'LIFE' logo stamped in the lower corner. Gee, thanks for screwing up the picture for me!
Re:It's lifelike pictures Jim (Score:5, Insightful)
Life-like indeed. It's magnificent.
I grew up learning about the world from Life and National Geographic. We were poor - pre-transistor days, couldn't even afford a radio -- but we had the media at our fingertips. I remember my father's part in WWII from pictures he showed me of places he'd been, in old copies of Life. I watched as the first seven astronauts were chosen. I watched the last moments of JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King and watched an immense culture change from the pages of Life. The ability of Life photographers to capture the eyes of people and stories and places has never been equalled to my mind.
The fact that Google has arranged with the owners of all this Life Magazine material to put the archive online for the rest of you makes me feel a good bit better about Google's place in the Internet.
I Still Have My July 4, 1776 Copy of Life... (Score:2, Insightful)