Google Sparks Life To LIFE

Most pleasant news -- LIFE Magazine is making available, through Google's Image Search, millions of images from its archives. (The official announcement from the Official Google Blog is here) Many iconic images of the 20th century were first published in LIFE, which ceased regular publication in 2000 after a steady decline that lasted 5 decades. Most of the newly available photographs have never been published before, which may indicate the banality of most of these shots, but nonetheless they do fill up the treasure trove of the available.

Best of all is this tidbit from the Associated Press:

The photos can be printed out for free as long as they aren't being used as part of an attempt to make money. Time Warner Inc., Life's parent company, hopes to make money by selling high-resolution, framed prints. The orders will be processed through Qoop.com.

What does this mean exactly for us? Leonard Goh at the Crave blog hosted by Cnet Asia notes that:

students and teachers can easily browse, view and retrieve low-res images for education purposes. The firm also isn't too worried about what bloggers may do to the pictures.

I heartily agree. I've normally been very hesitant in posting photographs by others outside of the Creative Commons pool. Even if reposting would be justifiable under "fair use", I just did not want the hassle of stating my defense if called to. The opening of the Life archive gives me vaster resources from where I can post pictures, and quality photographs at that. Though to bolster the fair use claim, it would be prudent to repost these at a lower resolution than what is provided for by Life/Google.

So here goes. Aptly, the first LIFE photograph I shall post is that of the first President of the Philippines, General Emilio Aguinaldo, circa 1949:

And here's a photograph of a U.P. Diliman ceremony from 1960, showing the conferral of an honorary degree to American President Dwight Eisenhower:

This new Life-Google partnership allows millions of quality photographs to be integrated into the vocabulary of the internets. It will be fun while it lasts.