5 ms·

Shorpy Historic Picture Archive

33 points by rhapsodic 10y ago

11thEarlOfMar 10y ago
The first electric car? http://www.junipergallery.com/node/139 http://www.junipergallery.com/node/139 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope-Waverley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope-Waverley
- qbrass 10y ago
  It's easily 10 years too late for that.
- ljf 10y ago
  70 years too late http://www.electricauto.org/?page=evhistory http://www.electricauto.org/?page=evhistory
contingencies 10y ago
As I have a long term project to do something similar for a large collection of antique postcards I was interested to take a look. Unfortunately the blog-like, search-unfriendly interface combined with the dubious unstated origin and licensing of the images didn't really impress.
- trynewideas 10y ago
  > the blog-like, search-unfriendly interface It's blog-like because it's just a blog. > combined with the dubious unstated origin and licensing of the images It's stated in the sidebar on every page. Still dubious, though many are transformations of LoC images which the blog owner claims copyright on. It's a cool archive, but no, it's not for use/reuse. Browse it for fun but understand it's a commercial enterprise designed to profit off public domain works.
  - kps 10y ago
    > Still dubious, though many are transformations of LoC images > which the blog owner claims copyright on. Specifically, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/ — hundreds of thousands of catalogued, searchable images.
  - mattkrause 10y ago
    > commercial enterprise designed to profit off public domain works As it goes, this seems fairly benign to me... * The original photos are readily available. A link directly to each photo might be a bit more "commons-friendly", but you can find most of the images by searching for the title on the Library of Congress page, which is linked on every image. * There's at least a bit of work, both in curating the collection and retouching the individual photos. I tried to cheap out by cleaning up one of the originals and printing it myself. It's more difficult and time-consuming than you might think. It's unclear to me what the status of a retouched public domain photo is. I could imagine that they are derivative works, particularly if that retouching has some sort of creative component (e.g., patching gaps or painting over creases) vs. something entirely automatic. * Even if they gave away the high-res retouched files, I suspect most of the value comes from having them printed and attractively framed. Clearly this isn't a service that will be given away for free.
- paganel 10y ago
  > As I have a long term project to do something similar for a large collection of antique postcards I was interested to take a look. You may already know about it already, but you can also draw inspiration from this project: http://www.oldsf.org/# http://www.oldsf.org/# . I know I did for my small-ish collection of old postcards.
throwaway_exer 10y ago
Wow. Those photos are fantastic. It would make sense to start thinking about an online foto gallery of historical interest. We have the storage capacity now, and those old fotos will rapidly disappear if left in closets and attics.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
brett40324 10y ago
Ads..sigh
- BobCat 10y ago
  uBlock Origin, sigh.
rplst8 10y ago
I'm happy to see a link on the top of Hacker News that is grey (visited) for maybe the first time ever. I've been frequenting Shorpy for many years. The view on the past it gives is always interesting and often stunning.
thekevan 10y ago
This is a site which takes images in the public domain, adds a watermark and charges for reprints.
- buserror 10y ago
  It used to be better TBH -- you had access to all of the images high resolution versions (enough for print quality); now it seems you don't. Seems their 'angle' is that the process often useless images into nice ones -- it's true, it's not easy to do something with bad quality scan, but I agree with the other posts that it's now way too overloaded with ads. Still, they found, treated and published some marvelous images, so they do get some credit for that.
- Nomentatus 10y ago
  True. Ever tried to search the National Archives online? It ain't no fun at all. Shorpy's search function is merely poor, so I tend to use it.
Nomentatus 10y ago
Search for "Detroit Publishing Company", for mammoth negative sizes a century ago, with astonishing detail. Amazing, better than HD resolution. Note that these and many other gems Shorpy copied from the National Archives, and they are online there too.

33 points by rhapsodic 10y ago

The first electric car? http://www.junipergallery.com/node/139 http://www.junipergallery.com/node/139 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope-Waverley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope-Waverley

qbrass 10y ago
It's easily 10 years too late for that.
ljf 10y ago
70 years too late http://www.electricauto.org/?page=evhistory http://www.electricauto.org/?page=evhistory

contingencies 10y ago

As I have a long term project to do something similar for a large collection of antique postcards I was interested to take a look. Unfortunately the blog-like, search-unfriendly interface combined with the dubious unstated origin and licensing of the images didn't really impress.

trynewideas 10y ago
> the blog-like, search-unfriendly interface It's blog-like because it's just a blog. > combined with the dubious unstated origin and licensing of the images It's stated in the sidebar on every page. Still dubious, though many are transformations of LoC images which the blog owner claims copyright on. It's a cool archive, but no, it's not for use/reuse. Browse it for fun but understand it's a commercial enterprise designed to profit off public domain works.
- kps 10y ago
  > Still dubious, though many are transformations of LoC images > which the blog owner claims copyright on. Specifically, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/ — hundreds of thousands of catalogued, searchable images.
- mattkrause 10y ago
  > commercial enterprise designed to profit off public domain works As it goes, this seems fairly benign to me... * The original photos are readily available. A link directly to each photo might be a bit more "commons-friendly", but you can find most of the images by searching for the title on the Library of Congress page, which is linked on every image. * There's at least a bit of work, both in curating the collection and retouching the individual photos. I tried to cheap out by cleaning up one of the originals and printing it myself. It's more difficult and time-consuming than you might think. It's unclear to me what the status of a retouched public domain photo is. I could imagine that they are derivative works, particularly if that retouching has some sort of creative component (e.g., patching gaps or painting over creases) vs. something entirely automatic. * Even if they gave away the high-res retouched files, I suspect most of the value comes from having them printed and attractively framed. Clearly this isn't a service that will be given away for free.
paganel 10y ago
> As I have a long term project to do something similar for a large collection of antique postcards I was interested to take a look. You may already know about it already, but you can also draw inspiration from this project: http://www.oldsf.org/# http://www.oldsf.org/# . I know I did for my small-ish collection of old postcards.

throwaway_exer 10y ago

Wow. Those photos are fantastic. It would make sense to start thinking about an online foto gallery of historical interest. We have the storage capacity now, and those old fotos will rapidly disappear if left in closets and attics.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

brett40324 10y ago

Ads..sigh

BobCat 10y ago
uBlock Origin, sigh.

rplst8 10y ago

I'm happy to see a link on the top of Hacker News that is grey (visited) for maybe the first time ever. I've been frequenting Shorpy for many years. The view on the past it gives is always interesting and often stunning.

thekevan 10y ago

This is a site which takes images in the public domain, adds a watermark and charges for reprints.

buserror 10y ago
It used to be better TBH -- you had access to all of the images high resolution versions (enough for print quality); now it seems you don't. Seems their 'angle' is that the process often useless images into nice ones -- it's true, it's not easy to do something with bad quality scan, but I agree with the other posts that it's now way too overloaded with ads. Still, they found, treated and published some marvelous images, so they do get some credit for that.
Nomentatus 10y ago
True. Ever tried to search the National Archives online? It ain't no fun at all. Shorpy's search function is merely poor, so I tend to use it.

Nomentatus 10y ago

Search for "Detroit Publishing Company", for mammoth negative sizes a century ago, with astonishing detail. Amazing, better than HD resolution. Note that these and many other gems Shorpy copied from the National Archives, and they are online there too.