11.19.2008

How absolutely, incredibly awesome is this?

This 1963 image by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt is part of a huge and growing - eventually to number more than 10 million photos - collection of digitized LIFE magazine photographs being hosted by Google, here. Most of the pictures were never published, according to Google's announcement. Click to browse the images or add the term "source:life" (presumably the quote marks aren't necessary) to any Google image search.

Henry Luce acquired the name LIFE by buying an existing humor magazine and used it for a new publication he founded in 1936. Luce's LIFE was published weekly until 1972, then intermittently and finally monthly until 2000. It set the standard for photojournalism in the 20th Century, covering virtually all of the newsworthy events in the latter half of the century and employing, at one time or another, virtually all of the world's best photographers.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool. And a great place to avoid work...

Ted Compton said...

An excellent place. Unfortunately the blogrolling site that provides the work avoidance list is down for repairs right now so I can't add it. I'll try to remember to do that when it comes back up.