First up is the link that may already be a chestnut to you internet history junkies out there, but it's one of the best: Shorpy.
Minor mill on Warren Creek by Arcata, California. Mack is the engineer, taken mid 1880s. Photographer unknown –from Shorpy.com
Shorpy posts historical photos. That's it. Explanations are minimal, but often unnecessary. When I look at the pictures on Shorpy, I think about how often a few photos can tell a story way better than a 2000 word analysis.
Shorpy also runs a comics subsite which is worth checking out too. Enjoy!
5 comments:
I don't like Shorpy.
Reason being: they don't cite the Library of Congress from where they steal ALL their pictures. It's one thing to make use of a resource and present it in a different or more populist way but it's quite another thing to give a (subtextual at least) visitor the impression that you either own or uploaded or somehow have something to do with the imagery.
Also, it's not like they invented the wheel. For instance, see Dirty Beloved who has been doing this for years (they also have a couple of other blogs, one with more actual pics and one with pics of women.
Now that I have that off my chest, the actual reason I dropped by was to say that somewhere (late last year I think) in my posts to Metafilter was a site about a big big old house that used to be in the Bay area. You'll know it when you see the link. Thought that might be, not quite up, but fairly close to, your street of passion, as it were. :- )
The Cliff House post? I hadn't seen it and I'm so glad you just drew my attention to that site! Such awesome photos! I'll link it on Bay Radical next week. I haven't had time to really research anything lately, and I'm mostly just linking to cool Bay history stuff until my finals are over, so this is perfect.
Good perspective on Shorpy. I like how attractive the site is and I appreciate how frequently they update, but you raise good points. I'll look more into Dirty Beloved too.
Yeah. Cliffhouse that's it. sorry...was lazy...should've found the link. The site is phenomenal actually. It's kind of web96 meets web2.0 with community input/contributions on a the back of some rusty old jalopy looking site - you'll see what I mean !
peacay - you're an idiot. Shorpy clearly states on their site that many of their photos are downloaded from the LoC. They hide nothing with regard to that fact. Before you post...get a clue.
Ah, the doubleplus safety of anonymity AND invective. You have convinced me of the error of my ways.
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