Norman Rockwell's research photos. Norman Rockwell commissioned photos (which he meticulously directed) and then painted those photos. Here are some of them.
posted by grumblebee on Dec 7, 2009 - 88 comments

LIFE magazine presents previously unpublished photos of Vladimir Nabokov, taken by Carl Mydens in 1959.
posted by Lutoslawski on Nov 17, 2009 - 31 comments

It's been posted before, but on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the stunning photography of Brian Rose is certainly worth revisiting. It's amazing that something like this existed. [more inside]
posted by jedro on Nov 9, 2009 - 21 comments

A blog of strange (found) B&W photography
posted by grumblebee on Nov 2, 2009 - 37 comments

Superheroes in Old War Photographs. [via]
posted by Pater Aletheias on Oct 21, 2009 - 29 comments

Stateside, Wild Youth, Motor Life, Roberta's World, Memento, and Sidewalks. Six collections of found vernacular photographs from reservatory.net. More found photos at Phoundfotographs, Accidental Mysteries, and Other People's Pictures. In the same vein as the better known (and previously posted) Shorpy and Square America.
posted by dersins on Sep 24, 2009 - 7 comments

1,512 high-resolution images of Mars from the viewpoint of an airplane passenger. Previous photos: 1 2 3
posted by msalt on Sep 4, 2009 - 14 comments

One in 8 Million "New York is a city of characters. On the subway and in its streets, from the intensity of Midtown to the intimacy of neighborhood blocks, is a 305-square-mile parade of people with something to say. This is a collection of a few of their passions and problems, relationships and routines, vocations and obsessions. A new story will be added weekly." A photo and audio series from the New York Times. [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco on Aug 22, 2009 - 53 comments

The Last Parcels of Nowhere Remaining in Manhattan. Photographs. [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco on Aug 12, 2009 - 33 comments

Hiking, biking, boating, fishing, shooting and more: "The Times of Our Lives." Wonderful scans of vintage photos of the 1950's and 1960's (uh, and 80's) from flickr user aroid. [via]
posted by dersins on Aug 11, 2009 - 7 comments

All at once, they practically screamed, “We’ve got ten minutes with the President on Monday…do you wanna do the shoot?!!”. Don’t let anyone tell ya photographing the President ain’t all it’s cracked up to be! [more inside]
posted by netbros on Aug 8, 2009 - 43 comments

Gaia Photos is "Your global team of local photojournalists," with contributions ranging from Nepal to Canada, and Mongolia to Texas. via The Press Photographer's Year 2009.
posted by Rumple on Jul 9, 2009 - 1 comment

Microworld by Licht. More of Paul's macro droplet shots can be seen at his Flickr gallery and others' macro droplet shots in the Refractions in Liquid Drops group pool.
posted by Orb on Apr 29, 2009 - 5 comments

The Vélocouture flickr pool. Over 1600 photos of stylish (and, uh, "differently-styled") bike fashion, from the hipster to the formal, the casual, the young, the old old-timey, the new old-timey, and much, much more. There's also a blog.
posted by dersins on Apr 23, 2009 - 37 comments

Vintage Supermarket Photos
posted by srboisvert on Mar 24, 2009 - 43 comments

"I remember having rootbeer floats on the porch swing on hot summer nights... I remember playing with my cousins and the neighbors in the side yard. I remember running to the train tracks just a few blocks away and counting the train cars (sometimes over 100!) as they streamed by. I remember 'Uncle' Bill showing me his missing finger that he lost while working the trains... This is someone else’s house now but my memories still live there." From Disappearing Places: An archive and collective map of places that no longer exist, at least not as they once did. [more inside]
posted by katillathehun on Dec 10, 2008 - 23 comments

I Know Where Summer Goes Photos by Ryan McGinley. Some nudity; fireworks; fun, longing.
posted by klangklangston on Dec 4, 2008 - 43 comments

The Insect Close-ups Flickr Pool is full of fascinating pictures. There are all kinds of wonderful images to be found, of spiders, ladybugs, hornets, aphids, grasshoppers, worms, water striders and those superstars of the insect world, bees and butterflies. You can also search a map for pictures by location. If you want to take your own bug photographer Mark Plonsky has written a short how-to guide. He has taken some pretty great photographs of insects himself.
posted by Kattullus on Nov 21, 2008 - 14 comments

Brutal or Amazing? - this is just one of many fine posts on the Photo Africa Blog, an excellent source of in-the-wild animal and nature photos and reports from bush field guides. Also see: Madikwe Lions.
posted by madamjujujive on Oct 4, 2008 - 20 comments

London from above, at night.
posted by cerebus19 on Aug 29, 2008 - 31 comments

The Sidney D Gamble Photograph Collection at Duke University consists of about 5,000 newly digitised pictures, taken predominantly in China between 1917 and 1932. Browse by subject, category or location tags. Photos taken in 1908 are to be added in the future. [via]
posted by peacay on Jul 9, 2008 - 5 comments

Picturing the Museum: The American Museum of Natural History Photo Collection.
posted by peacay on Jun 26, 2008 - 13 comments

New York City in (mostly) black and white. A huge collection of photos starting in the 1880s—some beautiful, all fascinating. Previously.
posted by cerebus19 on Jun 19, 2008 - 18 comments

Huang Chuncai poses before his second tumour operation. (slideshow) [more inside]
posted by kliuless on Jan 8, 2008 - 43 comments

Can you tell this photo was taken at 4:52pm, on either May 5^th or August 10^th? Forensic Genealogy uses historical records and small clues in pictures learn as much as they can about old photographs of unknown provenance. Want to try it yourself? Check out their weekly quiz. via GAMES [more inside]
posted by Upton O'Good on Nov 20, 2007 - 44 comments

Remember when air travel was viewed as glamorous and exciting? Of course you don't. So check out this collection of vintage flight attendant photos: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
posted by brain_drain on Nov 13, 2007 - 37 comments

Crime and punishment - a curiously compelling and quirky collection of historic crime photos, including unusual mugshots, corpses & crime scenes. A few favorite characters: idle and disorderly persons; "something amazing" about Harry; a cocky quartet; an illicit drug trader who "drives his own motor car and dresses well"; a subject who refused to open his eyes; charged with conspiring to procure a miscarriage; and guilty of unlawfully possessing cocaine.
This is just one of many marvelous vintage image sets from a historical consultant from Amsterdam - a mammoth treasure trove!
posted by madamjujujive on Oct 3, 2007 - 39 comments

Photographs of American Cities from the middle of the 20th Century.
posted by jonson on Sep 29, 2007 - 37 comments

The Third View project is a fascinating presentation of "rephotographs" of over 100 historic landscape sites in the American West that presents original 19th-century survey photographs, photographed again in the 1970s, then once again in the '90s - from the original vantage points, under similar lighting conditions, at (roughly) the same time of day and year. [Flash, and you'll probably need to allow pop-ups; a little more info inside...]
posted by taz on Jun 15, 2007 - 13 comments

Northwestern University hosts a fine collection of historic East African photographs, viewable as sample sets or in their original photo-albums (requires flash). But the real prize is their wonderful collection of 113 historic maps of Africa, which are zoomable to incredible detail, also 1, 2, 3. via
posted by Rumple on Jun 11, 2007 - 11 comments

The non-profit group, Public.resource.org, are challenging the Smithsonian Institution by downloading all 6,288 (mostly) public domain photographs from the very restrictive Smithsonian Images site and reposting them to Flickr. [more: here, here] {via Ramage}
posted by peacay on May 18, 2007 - 25 comments

Ridin' Dirty Face - photos by Mike Brodie in color, black & white and some polaroids.
Also, check out the The Polaroid Photography Collective.
posted by StopMakingSense on Jan 16, 2007 - 14 comments

The Cliff House was San Francisco Mayor Adolph Sutro's amazing 7-storey Victorian chateau built in 1896 and destroyed by fire in 1907. The Cliff House Project (photos) has a large and absorbing database of related material. [via the indefatigable gmtPlus9 (-15)]
posted by peacay on Dec 14, 2006 - 14 comments

Heli-Africa - Wildlife photographer Michael Poliza's photo journal from a just completed 2 month helicopter tour from Hamburg to Cape Town. These are a few samples to potentially whet the appetite.
posted by peacay on Dec 2, 2006 - 8 comments

Images of Ceylon - Hundreds and hundreds of photos taken in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) from the mid 1800's to around the turn of that century.

Warning: A handful out of the ones I've seen show topless women so maybe NSFW.
posted by selton on Sep 4, 2006 - 18 comments

The 10th day? A day of rest. Thank goodness for Caroline Yang's TdF photos. Ever wondered why McEwan rides so hard to stay in Green? What Ukrainian joy looks like? When you can wear socks with sandals? She's also got some decent shots of speed skating (oh, and real blood sports, like weddings).
posted by OmieWise on Jul 10, 2006 - 16 comments

Teddy Girls
posted by anastasiav on Feb 7, 2006 - 57 comments

Jeff Wall - The Tate Modern just closed up a "major retrospective" of Wall's (more info about Wall) work, but has saved the experience in this rich online presence, including a timeline of his works and influence, interviews, archived discussions of his works, and more (via ArtKrush)
posted by tpl1212 on Jan 17, 2006 - 3 comments

Reuters Pictures of the Year, 2005 If a picture is worth a thousand words then here's 40,000 words to remind you (if that's what you want) of 2005...
posted by benzo8 on Dec 22, 2005 - 50 comments

Like Everyday
"I am a woman and I live in Iran. I am a photographer and this is the only thing I know how to do."
posted by anastasiav on Oct 17, 2005 - 15 comments

Satellite photos of airplanes in flight. This is a great time-waster, but for some reason I keep looking for more (you may need to adjust the zoom bar on the page to maximum). These are all at the Atlanta airport, and I was surprised how close they were to each other.... check out the one that left before, and the one before that, and the one before that... Those are all taking off, here's one that's landing. Can anybody find any more? Or does anyone care?
posted by centerpunch on Aug 28, 2005 - 55 comments

Flickr: Explore! makes it easier to find amazing photographs at Flickr.
posted by nthdegx on Aug 14, 2005 - 37 comments

Artistic Tanks, Strange Theme Buildings, Unusual Water Towers, Giant Objects, and more!
posted by anastasiav on Jun 24, 2005 - 7 comments

The Museum of Food Anomalies
posted by anastasiav on Jan 5, 2005 - 8 comments

Old Tokyo. Photographs from the early decades of the twentieth century.
posted by plep on Jan 3, 2005 - 12 comments

The NYTimes 2004 Year in Pictures.
posted by bluedaniel on Dec 29, 2004 - 23 comments

Photos of an aftermath in progress (graphic). How a search for weapons of mass destruction has lead the U.S. so far. An informed citizen has an amazing right to see what is going on.
posted by omidius on Dec 9, 2004 - 25 comments

Is this you? Here's something for all of us who are desperately waiting for the next issue of Found, but are still a little bit creeped out by the pervy version.
posted by scrim on Dec 8, 2004 - 17 comments

A long-lost treasure too toxic to touch: Construction at New York City's Harlem Community Justice Center recently revealed a room piled high with records documenting the building's former life as an early 20th century prison. They offer a peek into the street life of ca. 1900 NYC and scholars are already interested - there's only one problem: the room also contains decades worth of toxic pigeon droppings. (NY Times - registration required). Photos (click on the "records rescue" link at the bottom) of the room are available at the great correctionhistory.org which also offers histories and photos of other out-of-the-way corners of NYC like the Hart Island Potter's Field.
posted by ryanshepard on Nov 5, 2004 - 9 comments

Mustard Gas Party :: Photographs of Modern Ruins
posted by anastasiav on Nov 1, 2004 - 10 comments