Hands are, uh, handy subjects–everyone has some nearby, right? And they’re an interesting shape. Some photographs of the hand at work, at play, under study and under a rodent, from the Flickr Commons. (Or come visit the gallery “Hands across the Commons” for fourteen handfuls of the same.)

Olifantsspitsmuis in Artis. Oppasser houdt muisje op de hand (a.k.a., an elephant shrew)

Nationaal Archief

Library Appeal 1973

. LSE Library

Women Bowling

George Eastman House

Moses Williams playing the diddley bow: Waverly, Florida

State Library and Archives of Florida

Untitled (from the 2006 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Native Basketry program)

Smithsonian Institution

With Paul Hagon’s new tool for searching the Commons by color, you can see the Commons in green not just for St. Patrick’s Day but any time … and in orange, violet, or whatever color suits your mood or needs. Paul’s Commons-by-color tool is a work in progress, but one that users are already loving.

George Eastman House

Brooklyn Museum

Bibliothèque de Toulouse

George Eastman House

Winter seems to be a bit “off” in the Northern Hemisphere this year — too little snow in the British Columbia mountains, too much snow in Oklahoma, and much too cold in the UK. But winter in the Commons? It’s always wonderful! See more winter and snow in the Commons.

Carol and Bobbie Ann’s February 1953 snowman, in Richmond, Virginia. (Where are Carol and Bobbie Ann today?)

The Library of Virginia

A snowman on the *other* side of the “pond”, in Wales.

LlGC ~ NLW

It’s a much colder winter in Antarctica – or it certainly was in the 1910s.

State Library of New South Wales

The city of Montreal may be saving on snow-clearing costs this year, but this is what we expect a Montreal winter to look like, even 120 years later.

Musée McCord Museum

Snow-clearing out west — the heavy-duty way.

Galt Museum & Archives

Where little snow fell, in London, there was work for the street sweeper.

George Eastman House

It may be work to clear later, but when the snow makes the city nearly disappear into white, that work is more than repaid by beauty.

Library of Congress

Had enough snow? Maybe it’s time for a visit to Florida …

State Library and Archives of Florida

From the Flickr Commons thread highlighting some of the remarkable images of bridges across the Commons:

Castle and suspension bridge, Conway (i.e. Conwy), Wales, ca. 1890–ca. 1900 (more about the Conway bridge).	Library of Congress
Suspension bridge, Niagara, ON, 1869, designed by John Roebling (before the Brooklyn Bridge), photographed by William Notman.	Musée McCord Museum
Templand Bridge, Cumnock, Scotland, ca. 1890–ca. 1900.	Library of Congress
The Brooklyn Bridge in 1905, printed in 1977.	George Eastman House
The Ness Road Bridge in Inverness, Scotland, between 1890 and 1900; the bridge was demolished in 1961.	Library of Congress
The 14th-century Pont Valentré, Cahors, France, June 1902, photographed by Eugène Trutat.	Bibliothèque de Toulouse

Portrait of strongman Don Athaldo

Powerhouse Museum

Bordoni

Library of Congress

Yasuo Kuniyoshi, photographed by Peter A. Juley & Son

Smithsonian Institution

Ida Fieldman, March 1945

Jewish Women’s Archive

Bath attendant Stella, Lysekil, Sweden

Swedish National Heritage Board

Laplander

New York Public Library

Ella Wesner, male impersonator

George Eastman House

Miss Estelle Doray, snowshoer, Montreal, Quebec, 1924

Musée McCord Museum

A child dressed in uniform, 1915

Australian War Memorial

Add the portraits you’ve found in The Commons to the Flickr Commons discussion group thread for portraits.

The Commons Galleries: Early colour photographic processes in The Commons on Flickr – featuring Lú_’s curation

Applied colour, Southworth & Hawes, ca. 1850 … with additional colour provided by the effect of time on metal.

George Eastman House

Hand-tinted, ca. 1875

State Library of New South Wales

Photochrom prints, also called Aäc, are ink-based images produced though “the direct photographic transfer of an original negative onto litho and chromographic printing plates.” – Library of Congress

Library Of Congress

Hand-tinted, 1900

Brooklyn Museum

Autochrome, ca. 1910 Autochrome is an additive color ’screen-plate’ process: the medium contains a glass plate, overlaying random mosaic of microscopic grains of potato starch, with lampblack filling the space between grains, and an impermeable black-and-white, panchromatic silver halide emulsion. – Wikipedia

George Eastman House

Glass Paget plate phototransparency, Frank Hurley, 1915 The system used two glass plates, one of which was the colour screen plate while the other was a standard black-and-white negative plate. The colour screen plate comprised a series of red, green and blue filters, laid down in a regular pattern of lines to form a réseau, or matrix. – Wikipedia

State Library of New South Wales

Tricolor Carbro process, Nickolas Muray, 1931

George Eastman House

The Flickr Commons project lets us see the 19th-century beginnings of photography represented in a very 21st-century space. And among those early treasures, we have reminders that women were there at the very beginning, some of the first to embrace photography as an art and as a tool. Consider these four founding mothers:

Anna Atkins (1799-1871) is represented in the Commons by her Photographs of British Algae, found as a set in the New York Public Library’s Flickr stream. Atkins studied science as her father’s assistant and made illustrations of shells for his 1823 translation of Lamarck’s book on the subject. She collected botanical samples, and through both her father and her husband came to know William Fox Talbot, inventor of the negative/positive process. By about 1841 she had access to a camera, but she’s best known for her 1843-45 cyanotypes (sunprints) of algae specimens. She collaborated with another woman, Anne Dixon (1799-1864), on other albums of botanical cyanotypes.

Fucus nodosus (1843-53), New York Public Library

Mary Dillwyn (1816-1906) was also acquainted with William Fox Talbot through family networks: her older brother John Dillwyn Llewelyn (himself a photographer) married Talbot’s cousin Emma. Mary was using a small camera in the early 1850s, and made a specialty of rather informal portraits for the time. After she married a clergyman in 1857, she gave up photography. Her work is to be found in the LIGC-NLW (National Library of Wales) Flickr stream, including this self-portrait from 1853.

Mary Dillwyn M.D. 1853 [self-portrait], LIGC-NLW (National Library of Wales)

Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879), who was raised in India, only started taking pictures at age 48, in 1863, when someone gave her a camera as a gift. Through her sister, she knew Tennyson and other writers and artists, and drew from their work in her subjects and poses. Cameron was also forward-thinking enough to get each of her images registered with the copyright office. She continued to make photographs when she moved back to Ceylon in 1875, but it was hard to get the necessary supplies there. The George Eastman House and the National Media Museum Flickr streams both include examples of Cameron’s work.

Ophelia Study No. 2, 1867, George Eastman House

Baby “Pictet”, 1863, National Media Museum

Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake (1809-1893) wasn’t herself a photographer. She was an art critic who wrote one of the first and most influential essays about photography as an art form, in 1857, declaring that “[p]hotography is intended to supercede much that art has hitherto done, but only that which it was both a misappropriation and a deterioration of Art to do.” She was married to Sir Charles Eastlake, the first president of the Royal Photographic Society. A Hill and Adamson portrait of Lady Eastlake (an early subject of photography as well as an early supporter) c. 1845 can be found in the Flickr stream of the National Galleries of Scotland.

Hill and Adamson, Lady Elizabeth (Rigby) Eastlake, 1809-1893. Writer, c. 1845, National Galleries of Scotland

Ch. Chusseau-Flaviens
Portugal Corrida, ca. 1900-1919
George Eastman House: [ID number]

Are you a Commons fan living in upstate New York? Join George Eastman House to celebrate The Commons at their Common Ground event in Rochester this Friday!

in Rochester, NY:

Flickr Commons uploads include many historical images–and historical images include many awesome hats–hats as costume, hats as uniform, hats as protective gear, and hats as fashion. Here are some of the finest examples.

This one at least looks lighweight–straw and flowers.

George Eastman House

The classic Australian hat–Aussie Olympic teams still wear this style in the opening ceremonies some years.

Australian War Memorial

A palmetto hat she made herself–probably a very practical solution to the need for cool headwear in Florida.

State Library and Archives of Florida

Evelyn Nesbit’s eyes, and the photo itself, all seem focused on that extravagant plume.

Library of Congress

The sideways cap–it isn’t just for 1980s rapper wannabes.

Library of Virginia

The pin on this 1930s headwrap commemorates the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

State Library of New South Wales

Mrs. Burleson’s huge hat marks her as a special leader of the suffrage parade. But the other women have some fine millinery too.

Library of Congress

The frayed edges of this hat match the frayed layers of Cody’s outfit.

George Eastman House

Feather plumes like these endangered several species of birds.

Library of Congress

Russell was an artist, but that’s no beret.

Smithsonian Institution

The exuberant hat matches Mrs. Stulle’s smile and attitude–she ran a matchmaking service for widows and widowers.

Library of Congress

Gardner’s hat marks him as a Nantucket eccentric, even while his suit and expression are quite sober.

Nantucket Historical Association

European immigrant women at Ellis Island sometimes brought with them the elaborate headwear of their home regions.

New York Public Library

Helene Dutrieu was the fourth woman in the world to earn a pilot’s license; she also raced cars and motorcycles. This makeshift helmet seems to have extra layers of felt for ear protection.

Library of Congress

A ballet dancer’s costume, heavily beaded and embroidered.

State Library of New South Wales

The clean lines of the sailor’s cap match the Portuguese actress’s trademark bangs and eyebrows.

Biblioteca de Arte-Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian

Today, we generally only see boater hats at political conventions–but they were once ordinary daywear for men, especially on hot summer days in Tennesee.

Smithsonian Institution

One of the most popular and commented photos in the Commons features a serious boy wearing a serious hat.

Library of Congress