Google Adds Life Photo Archives

by Michelle Lentz

I’ve always loved Life Magazine, perhaps because of my love of American pop culture. In the last decade, I’ve bought soft-cover Life “magazines” (more like picture books) that cover a year in pictures, the Kennedys, and more. I have a copy of a Life magazine from when we lost JFK and another from when we lost Jim Henson. Life captured the essence of American joy and sadness in pictures better than many writers.

Photo Credit

Of course, Life isn’t really in print anymore. But Google announced this week that they are partnering with the magazine to archive all of Life’s images. Now, I’m really not sure how this works for you, the user, when you want to legally embed these images on your blogs. (Of course, I did it anyway.)

The official, although not-ready-for-primetime, Life.com states

Welcome to the future home of LIFE.com, the most amazing collection of professional photography on the Web: 10 million photos from the legendary archives of LIFE magazine and thousands more added every day. Whatever you want to look at, whether it happened an hour ago, a century ago, or any time in between, you’ll be able to find it here quickly, easily, and for free.

If anything, you can now browse amazing pictures archived all the way from the 1860s. Not all the photos are online yet, of course, but they’re working on it. Around 20% of the collection is currently available online and over the next few months, they’ll finish adding all 10 million photos.

If you really love a photo, clicking on through will take you to a hi-res version of the image that you can purchase, suitable for framing.

–
Contact Michelle with your news, apps, and events via email at michelle[at]writetech.net, Twitter, Pownce, or FriendFeed. Visit Michelle at Wine-Girl.net and Write Technology.