indicommons &#187; George Eastman House

State Library and Archives of Florida

Moses Williams playing the diddley bow: Waverly, Florida

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

The Commons through Green-Colored Glasses

Stephanie Fysh — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 05:00:57 +0000

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.

Brooklyn Museum

Bibliothèque de Toulouse

Portrait of two men (c. 1860)

Interested in also playing at developing Commons tools, or already have one? We’d love to talk to you!

Recent Uploads to the Commons

Stephanie Fysh — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:00:01 +0000

George Eastman House is back, with 126 daguerreotypes from the Donald Weber Collection.

For Women’s History Month, the Smithsonian celebrates more women in science.

Ire`ne Joliot-Curie (1897-1956), 1921

In the lead-up to St. Patrick’s Day, the Library of Congress has added Ireland to its travel photochroms on Flickr.

[Menawn Cliffs, Achill. County Mayo, Ireland]

The University of Washington has added a large set of photographs from the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition.

Arctic Brotherhood Building presentation ceremony

Biblioteca de Arte-Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian hasgone fishing!

Recolha de redes de pesca, Portugal

The Powerhouse Museum has made additions to the Roussel archive set in its Commons collection.

Close-up of part of advertising sign on a wall advertising Tooth’s K B Lager, 1920 – 1929

A Commons Winter

Stephanie Fysh — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:00:34 +0000

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.

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.

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.

State Library and Archives of Florida

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

Bridges across the Commons

Nina — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:55:59 +0000

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

photographs selected by Nina; text by Stephanie

Portraits across the Commons

zyrcster — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:00:42 +0000

Portrait of strongman Don Athaldo

Powerhouse Museum

Bordoni

Yasuo Kuniyoshi, photographed by Peter A. Juley & Son

Swedish National Heritage Board

Ida Fieldman, March 1945

Jewish Women’s Archive

Bath attendant Stella, Lysekil, Sweden

Laplander

New York Public Library

Ella Wesner, male impersonator

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.

Before Kodachrome

zyrcster — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:09:33 +0000

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.

Hand-tinted, ca. 1875

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

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

Tricolor Carbro process, Nickolas Muray, 1931

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

Four British Foremothers of Photography

Penny — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:00:49 +0000

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.

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

Common Ground in Upstate NY!

zyrcster — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 01:08:59 +0000

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:

in the Curtis Theater, George Eastman House

Friday, October 2

3:30-5:00 p.m.

(website)

Hats across the Commons

Penny — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:44:02 +0000

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.

State Library and Archives of Florida

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.

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

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.

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

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

Feather plumes like these endangered several species of birds.

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

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

Nantucket Historical Association

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

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.

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

Biblioteca de Arte-Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian

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

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.

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