"thousands of the most important photographs of the last 150 years"

September 21, 2006 5:54 PM

Picture-History.com has "thousands of the most important photographs of the last 150 years", organised by collections and themes.
posted by MetaMonkey (17 comments total)

[via reality carnival]
posted by MetaMonkey at 5:56 PM on September 21, 2006

[This is Good]
posted by ericb at 6:05 PM on September 21, 2006

All images, text and other materials Copyright www.picture-history.com.

Yeah, I bet. Otherwise, it's a nice collection.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 6:11 PM on September 21, 2006

monju: i was just coming to post that. These pics are from the Smithsonsian's American Memory. (A versus B)
posted by keswick at 6:17 PM on September 21, 2006

Interesting. Perhaps not what I would define as "the most important" but rather what could turn out to be a very comprehensive archive of (possibly) overlooked pictures and thereby becoming important in its own right. Although I may be splitting hairs about that.
It's nice to see all the different sections on the First Nations, although the site is in need of an editor, as calling someone a goofy indian isn't the best way to garner respect.
posted by Zack_Replica at 6:35 PM on September 21, 2006

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
posted by Jimbob at 6:42 PM on September 21, 2006

Is this a wind up? I think "Some photographs" might have been a better title. What "defining moment" in world history did Edmund Ruffin partake in? A load of self congratulatory photos about America then some lazily and inaccurately titled random shots of Belgium and various locations in Europe such as Israel, Algeria, Tunisia and Syria (??)

[this is crap]
posted by fire&wings at 6:53 PM on September 21, 2006

From the contact page: "The www.picture-history.com WEB site was created by two avid photographers with a vision to make the World's most extensive collection of historical photographs available to the masses. They worked to compile this collection from extensive personal archives, private collections, and public institutions."

At least he is consistent. Here's the copyright notice from his other site: "All pages, images, pictures, illustrations, Paintings, Text, and Pics Copyright © 2003-2006 Son of the South."
posted by ?! at 8:10 PM on September 21, 2006

then some lazily and inaccurately titled random shots of Belgium and various locations in Europe

So you found a non-American picture?
posted by pompomtom at 8:45 PM on September 21, 2006

I like the selection of photographs featured on this site because I choose to view them on my own terms & not according to the overblown claims of the site's creators. (This strategy is available to you, too, fire&wings, although your specific complaints are justified.)
posted by Ricky_gr10 at 8:45 PM on September 21, 2006

The Smithsonsian site has the same pics in higher res jpegs and TIFFs, but hey, whatever.
posted by keswick at 8:48 PM on September 21, 2006

Yeah, I was hoping from the description this would be international in scope. Too bad.
posted by stinkycheese at 9:09 PM on September 21, 2006

Some nice pictures on that site.
posted by Vindaloo at 10:36 PM on September 21, 2006

Fuck this ripoff website – all of these pictures are from US Government websites like memory.loc.gov – and the text is probably ripped off too.
posted by blasdelf at 10:40 PM on September 21, 2006

Are the categorisations ripped off? Since when was Algeria in Europe?
posted by vbfg at 1:25 AM on September 22, 2006

The folks at this website helped me find a historical photo for which I had been searching for many months. It wasn't at the LOC, which I use often. They also went to a good amount of trouble getting the hi-res file to me quicker than usual.
posted by lampoil at 1:30 AM on September 22, 2006

Huh, hadn't anticipated quite so much hate, perhaps I should have thought twice about posting this when sleepy; I just saw a load of interesting, easily accessible photos of history and thought some MeFites would enjoy them, without considering the copyright thing. Although looking now, I believe they have the right the publish the images, though probably not to claim copyright on them.

There are quite a lot of neat photos of Europe and the Middle East if you're willing to poke about, also.
posted by MetaMonkey at 6:36 AM on September 22, 2006