World Press Photo, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing photojournalism (and hosting a large annual contest for photojournalism) has announced the release of its entire contest archive online. Since the organization has been in existence sine 1955, this is a pretty big archive. There are just under 10,000 photographs by 1,372 photographers of 79 nationalities. The archive is free and available at http://www.archive.worldpressphoto.org/.
There are several ways you can browse this site. You can browse it by year, from 1955 (which has one photo) to 2008 (which has over 60.) Photos for each year are presented in a page of thumbnails, which you can narrow down further by photographer, nationality, organization/publication, category, and prize won. Click on a thumbnail to get a larger version of the photo, and click on the “Photo Information” button to get more details about the people and things in the photo.
You can also browse the archives by photographer (all the photographers are listed in alphabetical order) or you can search. Search allows you to cover a variety of factors including year, photographer, nationality, etc. You can also search by category but this is hit and miss because different categories cover different years. I searched for everything in the “Humor” category (which is actually “Humor and Happy News”) and got 54 results covering 1973 to 1989. Pictures are listed by year, with thumbnails, and it works the same as browsing by year — click on the thumbnail for a larger picture, and on the “Photo Information” button for more details about the photo. Pictures in this category included a baby riding a scuba diver, a very happy winner of a Zulu dance contest, and Ronald Reagan with half a shaved head.
The United States National Archives now has an account on Flickr, and if these aren’t some of the unstuffiest most interesting archive photographs I’ve ever seen, I must be missing some great archives. The Archives’ Flickr page is http://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/.
Oh, these pictures. Oh, these pictures. Start with the favorites so you can see Nixon and Elvis in its original size (under a CC license too! … with a little judicious GIMPing, this is going over my desk.) Also: George Bush at Yale!
While you’re looking at favorites don’t miss the DOCUMERICA favorites set, which includes a great 1972 picture of a hitchhiker and his dog as well as a 1973 little league game and our own big blue marble.
Speaking of unstuffy, I did not expect from an archives photo collection kids out in the woods smoking pot, skinned possums (gah!), and furs being prepared for market (double gah!) More expected but also interesting was a series of photos about the reaction to the expansion of Logan airport, and some photos about women working industrial/war effort jobs during WWII.
What a terrific collection. I can’t wait to see what else they decide to add.
Duke University announced at the end of last month a new digital archive from the Duke Special Collections Library. “Deena Stryker photographs, 1963-1964″ is a collection of over 1,800 photos taken from 1963-1964, when Deena Stryker was in Cuba. They’re available at http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/stryker/.
You can do keyword searching or general browsing. A keyword search for Fidel found 272 results, including many “candid” pictures of Fidel Castro: speaking at a rally, looking for Cuban spaghetti, and, in one photo: “Fidel Castro showing Comandante Armando Acosta his cows.” Photo scans are good-sized and all the ones I looked at had very precise dates with some details like subject matter, province and city, people in the photograph, etc.
You can also browse through ALL the photographs if you really want to, or you can go through some of the subjects in the subject tree, which includes people, title (these seem to be particular events), person, province, city, or place.
