Comments on: LIFE photo archive hosted by Google.

LIFE photo archive hosted by Google.

chunking express — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:30:16 -0800

LIFE photo archive hosted by Google. Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Go.

By: starman

starman — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:45:38 -0800

That's great. Decent resolution, too. Now they just need a few interface goodies like most popular search terms, etc.

By: DU

DU — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:47:33 -0800

Date taken, 1759 First photo taken in 1827 what

By: DU

DU — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:49:43 -0800

(Maybe the 1759 refers to the date one of the paintings was painted? But that seems disingenuous at the very least.)

By: wendell

wendell — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:53:26 -0800

I might believe it was 1759 if Mozart was in the photo. Or maybe not. What years were Mozart alive?

By: chunking express

chunking express — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:58:05 -0800

It's probably some sort of mistake. The first set of photos on the homepage is from the 1860s, which makes more sense.

By: Knappster

Knappster — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:02:27 -0800

More photographs from the 1750s.

By: steef

steef — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:02:46 -0800

Wow! Neat. Why does it seem to max out at 200 images? Bourke-White? 200 images. Poet? 200 images.

By: DU

DU — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:06:51 -0800

But the text on the homepage says 1750s.

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:14:32 -0800

From what I can tell many (all?) these images were already available on gettyimages.com archive. They have no watermark now, but that's the only difference.

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:31:44 -0800

Getty images isn't as commonly browsed as Google Images, I'd imagine. So these images are now available to a wider audience, and without watermarks.

By: troy

troy — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:53:43 -0800

kinda lame. Searching for eg. Tokyo or Saigon returns the photos from 3 or 4 stories and that's it, apparently. Still, seeing a large-format picture does really leap out at you compared to what you see in a magazine, a la The Boston Globe's Big Picture feature.

By: troy

troy — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:57:36 -0800

w tee f

By: Knappster

Knappster — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:09:39 -0800

"Today about 20 percent of the collection is online; during the next few months, we will be adding the entire LIFE archive — about 10 million photos."

By: ZakDaddy

ZakDaddy — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:09:46 -0800

More photographs from the 1750s. posted by Knappster at 1:02 PM on November 18 [+] [!] Where "photograph" = "engraving." Check. I didn't realize Life was being published pre-American Revolution. w tee f posted by troy at 1:57 PM on November 18 [+] [!] Yeah, that vignetting is terrible, you think they'd've cropped that a bit.

By: squalor

squalor — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:30:21 -0800

Not the 1750s.

By: Slack-a-gogo

Slack-a-gogo — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:34:21 -0800

Well this is going to eat up my afternoon! It only took me a few seconds to find an ape participating in a study of ape addiction to TV.

By: squalor

squalor — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:52:56 -0800

And speaking of TV Addiction...

By: cavalier

cavalier — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:06:45 -0800

This is a fun post! The neat thing about huge image archives though is sniffing out the dupes... Walter Elias Disney, 1950s portrait photo The exact same portrait a search page later, now either weathered (note tears and tone), or just flat out faded sepia.

By: Rashomon

Rashomon — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:04:35 -0800

Random photos of note: Radio Dies on Mountaintop Love Holder Cigarette International Surf Ice Bicycle

By: kuujjuarapik

kuujjuarapik — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:36:00 -0800

w tee f They're just there to make sure the pinsetters don't form a union.

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:50:02 -0800

This one is pretty horrifying. (Great post!)

By: chunking express

chunking express — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:59:12 -0800

2 year old smoking.

By: device55

device55 — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:11:39 -0800

Get your fingers out of my beer.

By: gubo

gubo — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:39:53 -0800

Destination: The Moon

By: Rhaomi

Rhaomi — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:52:15 -0800

Great stuff! Now let's just hope they don't take it down after a month, like the last cool thing they did.

By: paisley henosis

paisley henosis — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:40:22 -0800

Fantastic stuff, thanks for the link.

By: stinkycheese

stinkycheese — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:45:05 -0800

Every single picture saves as c.jpg. That's pretty evil.

By: Korou

Korou — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 11:40:04 -0800

The Best of LIFE blog, displaying images from Google and Flickr Commons.