Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Newspapers, by Quinn Cowper, Creative Commons: BY-NC-ND 2.0."][/caption] On May 20th, a flurry of reports took note of Google’s decisions to halt its ambitious efforts to digitize the contents of newspaper archives and make them online and at no cost.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="385" caption="Games, by Axel Tregoning, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."][/caption] While some people seem to enjoy fantasizing about doomsday scenarios and the end of the “real” world, a recent piece on Ars Tehchnica’s website makes it clear that virtual worlds don’t last forever, either.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Window Necklace, by Hoong Wei Long, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."][/caption] For those who continue to believe that bigger is better—that you’re better off, for example, the more megapixels your digital camera delivers—a recent article by Jordan Ellenberg in WIRED magazine suggests the opposite may be true.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="A Penmanship sign was located in Boerum Hill and was painted in 1997. It was a faux billboard created by Jerry Johnson of Orange Outdoor Advertising, Photo by Bosc d'Anjou, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0 Generic."][/caption] A week or so ago, I was looking through documents scanned by the Smithsonian Institution
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Posing with a yearbook picture of myself, by Billy Mabray, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."][/caption] I’m a fan of yearbooks. I was an editor of mine in college, a somewhat unusual, multi-volume, and boxed object that included two books, a booklet, a brochure, and (it being the late sixties) a balloon. Back then, we
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Photo shoebox upset, by Stephen Cummings, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."][/caption] I recently took a position as photograph archivist at the Smithsonian Institution Archives and hope to be able to share through this blog some of the processes we are undertaking to make our photographic collections more useful and
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Wallet, by Amanda Govaert, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."][/caption] A recent article by Caitlin McDevitt in the Washington Post, describing Facebook’s expanding role as a hub for digital photography, while providing some surprising facts, raises one particularly interesting issue. As more people post and share
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="305" caption="Cake, by Daniel Nelson, Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0."][/caption] It’s hard to believe, but it has been two years to the day that THE BIGGER PICTURE has been in existence (note: that rogue January post doesn’t count as it was backdated)! The blog was started by the Smithsonian Photography
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption=""Backscatter" x-ray scan, courtesy of Flickr user publik16, Creative Commons: Attribution 2.0."][/caption] Following the Christmas Day capture of a passenger, dubbed “The Underwear Bomber,” who attempted to blow up an American airliner, controversy swirls around the use and efficacy of full body scanners and the fate of