Finding Images: Flickr
Preamble; I am not a fan of lists as a blog post format, and rarely use them. However, in this post I break my own rules in order to share some unique images that I think are culturally significant or have educational potential. This this first of a series of posts on images, the Flickr platform and their potential in learning.
For me; Flickr is the most important online image hosting and sharing platform. It works on many levels, supporting a much more diverse community than its popular competitors, Facebook and Instagram. Although there is some overlap in features between the services, Flickr offers a much greater degree of control in managing images.
At the moment I follow 197 individual photostreams, from which I have selected 12* to provide a representative snapshot of the kind of images I find most valuable. Some are great examples of the photographer’s craft, others significant social documents, records, curated ephemera and rarely seen historical artefacts. Most of the streams I follow use one of the various Creative Commons licences.
For this post, I could have shared any combination of these photostreams, all have some great images, and I expect to feature others in some more specific posts shortly. I hope you enjoy these images as much as I have.
in no particular order….
British Library, - 1 Million images uploaded to the Public Domain
Released to the public in December 2013, the British Library’s collection on Flickr contains over one million images. All were automatically scanned from the Library’s collection of 17th, 18th and 19th century books and are now in the Public Domain. The collection includes maps, diagrams, illustrations, comical satire, illuminated and decorative letters, landscapes, wall-paintings.
Detailed metadata, (other than source and date), is scare but the notes accompanying each image include a link to all the other images within a book. Additionally entire books can be downloaded as a pdf file. Many of these pages have never been seen before.
The British Library is keen for people to access, tag and reuse these images in as many different ways as possible, hosting an annual competition to encourage their reuse. To encourage this further it hosts an annual competition to stimulate engagement with the collection. Another of the Library’s experiments is the Mechanical Curator — an algorithm that randomly selects an image every hour which it then posts to its eponymous Tumblr blog,
Okinawa Soba (Rob) - A personal view, Japan old and New
Rob has lived on Okinawa island, for most of the past 42 years. His photostream is a mixture of photographs he has taken, together with an archive of antique images scanned from his own personal collection. Acquired during the 1970s through the 1990s these scans includes hand-tinted photographs, stereograms and glass slides. Subjects in this historic material include Geisha's, fashion, street life, warriors and other notables. Rob’s photographs provide a detailed insightful view of the island in recent years. Landscapes, urban spaces and daily life and recreation all feature strongly
Many images also also reflect the physical and social changes taking place and provide a fascinating record as shown in the example below.
Almost every peak and mountain you can see in this old halftone postcard image from 50 years ago has either been quarried down to sea level, or had its summit taken down 30 meters (100 feet) or more on its way to a final vanishing act.
Rob’s pictures have detailed notes and information interspersed with informal personal observations and comments. All of this makes this it a valuable document, which could easily be adapted as a wonderful and informative book.
The JR James Archive - Dystopias revealed before their time
The J. R. James Archive is named after JR ‘Jimmy’ James Professor of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield. Covering a period from 1960s till the mid 1980s, this photographic archive is a superb record of daily life in the built environment of Britain. Digitised from original 35 mm transparencies by graduates in the department, the archive hosts 3,782 photos, maps, plans and photographs.
Subjects include; street scenes, brutalist architecture, the dilapidated terraces and tenements of post 60s Britian. These are contrasted with visionary drawings by town planners planners and architects. Throughout the images, children play, everyday people look happy getting on with their lives, but occasionally they appear to accept - perhaps subconsciously - they have no real agency in these spaces
David Blackwell - Visual humour in space and time
David’s photostream often features himself as a protagonist in various off the wall photo-montages. Others blend ‘SF’ images and works of ‘high art’ creating a thoroughly believable alter-reality. You can almost feel the pleasure and pride of the Cuyp Family as they show off their new robot.
There is always something ironic, traces of dark humour, visual puns abound and perhaps - hidden messages!
David’s note in the comments fields hint at the technical skills and processes involved in creating such high quality images. Hopefully they will provide inspiration for others to use, adapt and explore the creative potential of openly licenced images, such as those from Creative Commons, the British Library or other public domain sources
David shares his artwork using the Creative Commons No Derivatives licence. This is a licence favoured by artists and photographers who wish to share their work and allow its unedited use in other media and platforms.
Thomas Hawk - ‘America the Beautiful’
Thomas Hawk’s photostream is one of my more recent discoveries on Flickr. I’m not quite how I missed his work till now? He describes his images as a work in progress…
Sometimes I like to think of myself as a photography factory. I see my photographs mostly as raw material for projects that might be worked on at some point later on in life.
Focusing mainly on America this is already a huge body of work with over 110,800 images in 200 albums. Thomas states his goal is to leave a legacy of over 1,000,000 images. The photographs cover many themes; cities and architecture, neon signs, rock concerts, automobilia, art and artists.
All are presented with meticulous attention to detail, shot from different viewpoints, often with multiple variations on a theme. Thomas states his goal is to leave a legacy of over 1,000,000 images, and it is a testimony to his work that he is able to share an album of 2400 photos, each one having been ‘favourited’ at least 100 times.
Joe Haupt (France1978) - Vintage product design & ephemera
Joe is an avid collector who has assembled a fascinating and historically significant stream of 8000 images of vintage artefacts especially consumer technology such as portable radios, cameras and watches. Some albiums are quite specialist for example or miniature TVs , it is interesting to compare them the streaming TV capabilities of current smartphones.
Most of the images are available in large sizes, 4000 px and above. This gives us the chance to study, close up, the marvellous details of engineering and design.
Other artefacts include cigarette lighters, greetings cards and shaving equipment— all shine a light on the our recent past. If you are interested in popular product design this is a great Flickr account to follow.
simpleinsomnia - fleeting memories from times past
Simple Insomnia describes his photostream as; “Specializing in vintage found photographs. Eerie, unsettling, and beautiful.” These monochrome or tinted images capture times and places past, not in crisp detail, but as fleeting memories.
By the sea, in towns, living rooms and unnamed places, ghostly figures reveal themselves through double exposures. Families pose preserved in dust and scratches whilst the film light leaks make us realise that it is highly unlikely any of these actors are still amongst us. I can study these pictures for hours, every single image has a unique, and probably forgotten story to tell. They are ripe for further research.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - Earth and beyond…..
The last decade has seen an upsurge of space and astronomical images. Most world news and media outlets NASA regularly show spectacular images of current space missions or geological or meteorologist phenomena. Many of these will have been sourced from, (though not always credited to), NASA.
Goddard is home to Hubble operations, and includes “the nation’s largest organization of scientists, engineers and technologists who build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study Earth, the sun, our solar system and the universe” The images are updated regularly in relation to current discoveries and events.
It is worth noting that there are many other NASA image and social media accounts you can check out. Most of the individual NASA accounts publish their images using one of the Creative Commons licences. NASA also has an overarching NASA open policy regarding media use.
X RAY Delta One - Populuxe, ephemera & the American Dream
American photographer and journalist James Vaughan aka X Ray Delta One has amassed this huge collection of 20th Century Americana. It is a mix of photographs and scanned artefacts of popular culture. In addition to pulp fiction covers replete with damsels in distress futuristic exhibitions, there are images of the space race, automobiles, military hardware and advertising ephemera. The influences of Raymond Loewy are embedded throughout.
Many of the images are great examples of the style known as as Populuxe or Googie Design. This was when the world aspired to the American Dream .. this is how we thought we would live. It is great James is able to share his collection to remind us how it was.
Steven Zucker (ProfZucker) - Interpreting Art & Art History
Steven is an Art Historian, and Co-Creator of Smarthistory.org. SmartHistory shares its content on Khan Academy and Flickr. The Khan platform hosts more than 1500 videos and essays on art from around the world and is one of the best introductions to Art History, indeed online learning, I have seen. Many of the images used as part of these courses are from Steven’s photostream.
In addition to the individual works, or selected details, many of Steven’s photographs show them in a museum context, complete with with visitors, and their interactions with the art. This gives a new insight into how people relate to art and is something cannot be found in standard books or encyclopaedias about Art.
It is also something I have been experimenting with in my images taken in art galleries and museums and plan to more. I am very lucky to be visiting the Uffizi next week and delighted to learn the museum allows considerate and respectful photography.
o_teuerle on/off (Olaf Teurle) B&W Magic
Having only joined in April 2015, the 146 images uploaded by Olaf is probably one of the smallest collections in this list. However, this is more than adequately compensated by the sheer aesthetic and technical quality of his predominantly B&W or monochrome, images. Superbly lighting, great contrast with crisp and focussed detail. Many of the of images also demonstrate a creative use of depth of field. These candid observations of people, often in urban settings, hint at the subjects feelings and moods in a way that would not be possible using words.
The high number of favourites, awards and positive comments on the majority of Olaf’s photographs is testimony to the superb quality of his work. That he feels able to share them with a CC Licence makes this a very unique collection. I look forward to the next 146 and beyond.
Macroscopic Solutions - minature worlds
“Geologists, Biologists and a Returned Peace Corp Volunteer… provide novel imaging support and solutions to enhance scientific research and inspire kids.”
Macroscopic Solutions employ an imaging technique called focus-stacking to provide a greater depth of field in their highly magnified images of our natural world including plants, animals and geological specimens. The quality
All images use an open CC BY licence and are available in large sizes, many over 5000px . I’m convinced many schools would be able to make great use of these images in many subjects including Sciences, Art and Mathematics.
Flickr Commons - * and one extra …
Finally, I feel must mention Flickr Commons, whose goal of is to “share hidden treasures from the world’s public photography archives.” More institutions join the Commons on a regular basis and all images in the commons are available with No Know Copyright Restrictions
The photograph above is from the Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information Collection 12002–41 (DLC) 93845501 collection is widely accepted to be the template and original source that gave rise to Rosie the Riveter as a cultural icon and subsequent visual meme that has been reproduced and shared online thousands of times.
It is also one of the definitive images that helped launch Flickr Commons in January 16 2008, in Partnership with the Library of Congress. The feedback in the initial user research also served a as template for the GLAM movement to. Starting only with a few there are now 108 participating institutions from around the world.
Disclaimer: Copyright information attached to images is as stated on individual photostreams.
