LIFE Magazine Photo Archive
First up, LIFE Magazine recently reached an agreement with Google to post over 10 million images from the archives of LIFE on Google Image Search. The LIFE Photo Archive contains so many images that 97% of them have never been seen before. Google is busy adding all these photos to the archive now, and over the next few months all 10 million will be available online for free. The pictures go from present day all the way back to the 1750s, and contain a large mix of black-and-white and color photos that are available in their full sizes. This is an amazing resource.
Now I've spent some time using it, and there's a few things I learned that can help you. There are two issues I have with the index as it's currently arranged. The first is when you look at the index, the images appear to be arranged by date. So it appears if you're looking for a particular time period, you can simply browse the archive. However this doesn't really work that well, as if you look at the URL constructed for each decade you'll see there is an additional search term in there that limits the search. So what is misleadingly labeled "1940s" really "1940s and Hawaii". If you want just the 1940s then you have to change the search after the fact to remove "Hawaii" out of it. I don't understand why this is presented in this manner, but it is. Very misleading.
The second and bigger issue I have with the archive is broad search terms like the above give you a paged listed of results, which is typical for a Google search. However unlike normal searches the results are artificially stopped at 10 pages of results. So if you did actually want to browse the 1940s, you can look at the first 200 pictures and that's it. Again very unfortunate and really seems an arbitrary design decision since nothing else in Google's results presentation works this way.
OK enough discussion of what doesn't work, let's talk about what does. The key to searching the archive are the tags, or "labels" as they are called, attached to each picture. Let's bring up a few pictures and see. OK knowing this is LIFE, these pictures will be primarily US-oriented. So my first go-round I figured I'd search World War 2 pictures, so I typed in "World War 2" (with quotes to make it a phrase) and got nothing. "WW2" also got nothing. This leads us to a key aspect of image search - finding the right label to use. But how do you find out what the editor chose for labels? Here's how I did it. After a few rounds of poor results, I went for something more specific, The Battle of the Bulge. Not wanting to be too specific in my search, I typed in "Bulge", and what do you know we have 100 results. Good, but I expected more. Now click on an image and we see more details about it - when and where it was shot, the photograper, etc. We also see the tags associated with this image, in this case "Ardennes, Fog, Winter Warfare, Wars, Wwii, Belgium, Weather, Action, 1940s". Now we know the magic tag for World War 2 - "Wwii". Click on that link and we get our maximum 200 results. You will also see "Related Images" tied to each image. Usually these are pretty good at finding more pictures taken at the same time as the one you're looking at, as well as others related to the subject. So as it turns out this is the key to going around the archive. Use very specific terms to zero in on a particular battle/location/person, then use the related images and labels associated with the image to broaden your search back out to find other associated images. This "inside-out" search method is the first key to success in searching the LIFE archive.
However there are a few gotchas even here. Let's go back to our earlier scenario where I've searched for "Bulge". This turns up an interesting picture of
US GI's advancing over snow-covered fields. However if you look at the labels, you see a mistake. Rather than "Wwii" as before, we see the tag here is "Ww Ii". Clicking on that label gives us the maximum 200 results again, so clearly there are a lot of photos using this alternative form of the WW2 label. So this leads us to the second factor in successful seaching of the archive - use more than one label to find what you're looking for. In other words, approach your target from different directions using different labels, and collectively you will get the maximum results.By combing the methods of inside-out searching and multiple label approach, you'll have the best chance of success in finding what you're looking for in the LIFE Photo Archive.
The German Federal Archive
On December 4, 2008 the German Federal Archive donated 100,000 images to Wikipedia, images that touch on the history of Germany dating from 1860 to the present day. Apparently this is the first step in a process that would release approximately 11 million photos to the public. Of primary interest to military historians are the periods of the Great War, World War 2, and the Cold War. As with the LIFE archive, we have another stunning resource to dig into including many pictures that have not been widely viewed before.
I spent some time digging into the images of the German Federal Archive as well. This archive is much more sensibly organized, and is indexed several ways including date, location, country, and topic. This gives you an fairly easy way to dive into your subject matter. Personally I found it easiest to use by date, as some of the other metadata like location for example are hit-and-miss.
The quality and breadth of the pictures themselves is amazing. I chose to dig around in 1941-43 for pictures of the battle for Stalingrad, since I have an interest in that topic and am very familiar with it. Quickly many pictures surfaced, including some of areas I've never been able to obtain before.
This overhead picture shows the central area of the city, including Train Station #1, the Univermag Department store (site of the final surrender of Generalfeldmarschall Paulus), Fallen Heroes Square, the Volga river, Pavlov's House, The Grist Mill, and other famous locations. This is clearly taken early in the battle as the buildings are all still intact - yet it appears there is snow on the ground! Another fascinating picture is one which appears to have been taken from the heights of Mamayev Kurgan towards the factory area. Again I've never seen any photos like this before, and clearly the photographer is doing his best to stay low to the ground. 
Still another photo shows a battle raging around one of the factories in the northern section of the city, and you can see the bluffs along the river the Russians never gave up, well-worn trails going down to the river for resupply of their beleaguered forces, and what appears to be mortars or artillery going into the battle zone - a facinating photo indeed.The only negative for me was the descriptions are all posted in German. This is easily solved by using Google Translate however, so it's a minor criticism. The descriptions themselves are the original descriptions given to them, and you will see a mix of detail, propoganda (both German and Russian it appears), and accuracy/inaccuracy. The policy seems to be to display the original description no matter how inaccurate or inflammatory, and allow others to post updates alongside, which I think is absolutely the correct approach from a historical perspective.
Both of these archives will be an incredible resource for many years to come, and I look forward to what we will find as millions more photos are added. I'd love your reactions to the release of these historical archives, as well as any particularly interesting photos you find as you begin exploring. Just drop them into the comments please.
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