More than 16,000 photos related to the USGS from the years 1868 through 1992 are now available online where they may be easily searched, viewed, and downloaded free of charge. These are old stereo pairs, sites drowned by dams, geologists and surveyers in horse drawn wagons, petroglyphs, national parks, Mount St. Helens, John Wesley Powell, hoodoos, arches, ruins, mines...
posted by the Real Dan on Apr 14, 2005 - 16 comments

Bill Gates... so hot [via BoingBoing].
posted by digaman on Jan 17, 2005 - 60 comments

A picture's worth a thousand tweets, sure. But I still would like to know what happened here.
posted by Witty on Apr 26, 2004 - 39 comments

The Kodak vs. the King . Images of the the Belgian Congo (aka the Congo Free State) from it's heyday under the personal rule of the very evil King Leopold. The contrast between the photographs used by Leopolds apologists and those used by his enemies (lead by the remorseless E.D. Morel) is probably unsurprising but interesting as evidence of perhaps the first propaganda war to be dominated by photography. Also, the first genocidal atrocity to be, very partially, documented photographically.

The kodak has been a sore calamity to us. The most powerful enemy that has confronted us, indeed.... Every Yankee missionary and every interrupted trader sent home and got one; and now -- oh, well, the pictures get sneaked around everywhere, in spite of all we can do to ferret them out and suppress them.

Mark Twain, King Leopold's Soliloquy

(most links go to the excellent boondocksnet site which takes as its starting point Mark Twain and his anti-imperialist campaigns and branches out most impressively from there)
posted by thatwhichfalls on Mar 20, 2004 - 6 comments

Peter Ha Photographs.
posted by hama7 on Oct 9, 2003 - 8 comments

Slightly ominous, slightly beautiful collection of ePostcards (and photographs) of Streatham Cemetery, rendered in the subtlest use of Flash I've ever seen (gentle animations on small portions of each image. Be sure to view the cemetery in all four seasons, multiple pix of each.
posted by jonson on Sep 13, 2003 - 26 comments

Politics storms the museum Earlier this month, the National Museum of Natural History opened "Seasons of Life and Land," an exhibit of wildlife photographs by artist-naturalist Subhankar Banerjee. If you go to Washington, you'll find the show hung in the museum's Baird Ambulatory Gallery, essentially a basement hallway installed with lights. Just two months ago, however, it was prepared to run in a more complete form in a premiere gallery on the museum's main floor, alongside a major exhibit of botanical paintings. What happened?
posted by bas67 on May 18, 2003 - 15 comments

When Rock bands leave their irony at home (or potentially never had any). An outrageously hilarious collection of musicians taking incredibly self-concious photographs of themselves. All of my fellow musicians on metafilter, you will find this particularly hilarious (and cringe-worthy, as you wait to see if the next pic will be...you!)
posted by glenwood on Jul 25, 2002 - 53 comments

A Picture is worth a thousand words
Jonathan Jones says America turns to Rockwell's idyllic images in times of trouble.
Remember This Guy from Tiananmen Square, June 5, 1989? A powerful image that seems to be linked to bravery and freedom in most stories I remember.
Now what about This Guy, A Palestinian boy throwing stones at an Israeli tank.
I'm not sure where the connection is here, but the tank images struck me as somewhat similiar to each other, yet, I imagine the two images will mean different things to different people.
I'm not sure what either tank image has to do with Rockwell, that's just the story that got me thinking.
posted by Blake on Feb 19, 2002 - 4 comments

Convert your pictures to HTML. So cool I nearly wet myself.
Seriously.
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger on Jan 23, 2002 - 26 comments

Photos of Car Burnouts in Garnock make for a surprisingly good website. Makes me wish I had a similarly simple yet satisfying hobby. I mean, at this boy's I was collecting beermats for some bizarre reason. The kids of today have got it all...
posted by MUD on Oct 7, 2001 - 10 comments

thak you speaks for itself
posted by Postroad on Sep 22, 2001 - 18 comments

Oh say can you see? This photo has a clever arrangement of chairs and a blue piece of fabric. Cool photography out of Brooklyn. This photo is used as a postcard.
posted by borgle on May 11, 2001 - 15 comments

This is one for discussion. Last week, I read an article debating whether or not photography was a true art form like painting or drawing, or if instead it was merely a reflection of reality and not artistic. With that in mind, when we see photos like this one, this one, and this one, why do we assume that any part of what was captured was the truth? Is the camera an impartial observer, or is the photographer staging these images as a painter would? Do you think a photograph has enough reality to be considered the truth, or is a photograph a miniaturized view of reality, depending on what you point a camera at? I'm curious to hear people's thoughts, as I see groups on every side of the issue spinning these photos to support their cause.
posted by mathowie on Apr 22, 2000 - 26 comments