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New! Flickr Commons Explorer

Browse around the wonderful Flickr Commons collection all in one place!

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Welcome, Prakash!

Prakash Krishnan (he/him) is an artist-researcher and cultural worker, and joins us on a research fellowship in 2024.

Meet Prakash

Introducing Eliza Gregory

One of the Flickr Foundation's research partners, based in California.

Meet Eliza
A bookshelf holds a small collection of art, tech and theory books. On top of the shelf is a coffee pot and mugs.
A glimpse inside HQ

On being a research fellow

Jenn reflects on her six months working with the Flickr Foundation crew.

Read all about it

The architecture of a Data Lifeboat service

What are the different systems and pieces involved in creating a Data Lifeboat?

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How does the Commons Explorer work?

Let’s dive under the hood and find out how the new Commons Explorer works.

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Data Lifeboat Update 3: Legal stuff, workflow, and a day out.

Learning about physical lifeboat design, starting legal framework with C.A.R.E.

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African American men and women posed for portrait on steps at Atlanta University, Georgia

Repurposing and Remixing Archival Images

Looking closer at a passing piece of pop culture.

See more.
A woman engineer connects flight deck control wires

Data Lifeboat: Deeper research into the challenge of archiving social media objects

Digital photography is worth collecting…but how?

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Welcome, Eryk!

AI researcher and new media artist, Eryk Salvaggio joins as our first research fellow for 2024.

Meet Eryk

Data Lifeboat Update 2: More questions than answers

Sketches of software, the labyrinth of licensing, and the selection of standards.

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color photograph of a black woman in a print dress holding a book looking up at the photographer

Black History Through Archival Images 2

More stories of carefully curated Flickr albums that tell us stories about Black history in the US.

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a smiling young Black woman with short hair wears a welding visor pushed back in her head and welding gloves

Black History Through Archival Images

Many carefully curated Flickr albums tell us stories about Black history in the US.

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Introducing Flickypedia, our first tool

Come and meet our first tool, Flickypedia!

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Data Lifeboat: NEH Grant Update 1

Our Data Lifeboat project has begun! Meet the crew, and the many, many questions…

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Welcome, Susan!

Our fundraising department is born!

Meet Susan

Our 2024 plan

Learn about our intentions for our projects, pipeline, and people for 2024

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Black and white photograph featuring a white woman blowing out candles on a birthday cake. She is surrounded by another seated woman and a man, standing behind her. On the photo is handwritten 'Nov 22-45' and 'Celebrating Marge's birthday'.

Sixteen years of Flickr Commons

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An unidentified girl is seen in a goat cart

Reopening the doors to Flickr Commons

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Just A Cool Bell Two men standing by a bell which is significantly larger than either one of them, in a jungle setting

16. Just A Cool Bell

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A small cat rubbing up against an old box camera

15. Cat Pictures, Mostly

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The Rolling Stones playing a concert in a small auditorium. Mick Jagger is jumping in the air and the word DECCA is on the back brick wall in sans serif letter.

14. Celebrity Surprises

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two women examine and put books into a box that says State Library of New South Wales Circulating Box

13. Knowledge in Motion – Book Transportation

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a woman in a flight outfit standsby a small airplane. There is a medium sized dog sitting on the wing of the airplane next to her

12. Name That Aviatrix – Assembling Knowledge From Many Sources

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a collection of young turkish children gather on a set of steps and look at the photographer

11. Showcasing Changes Over Time

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Photograph of a man getting his head tattooed with a butterfly

10. Careful Curation for Serendipitous Discovery

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illustration of a reddish seahorse

9. Increasing Access to Fragile Materials

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A man laying on a beac with his head in his hands, shown looking slightly downward on the top of his head

8. Meeting the photographers

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men at work building a lighthouse in the open ocean

7. Who Are Those People? Or pets? Or things?

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A woman stands near a rock with an american flag waving overhead.

6. The Historical Boundaries of Washington D.C.

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a man in a military uniform and a bushy mustache holds a piegon in his hand

5. Decorated War Pigeons

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Streamlined mobile home which looks like a very curvy school bus with window awnings on the side and a racing stripe, on a Brisbane suburban street

4. Homegrown Outback Exploration

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The longest kayak journey in the world two people carrying very large baskets on their head walking along a beach

3. The Longest Kayak Journey in the World

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The UK's UFO Desk hand drawn illustration of a spaceship

2. The UK’s UFO Desk

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Three women sitting on Fionn Mac Cumhaill's (Finn Mac Cool) Wishing Chair at the Giant's Causeway, Co. Antrim. They're selling tourist trinkets and books containing views of the locality. The woman on the left is barefoot.

1. Classic Photo, Modern Rock

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White woman lies on a bed, wearing glasses designed for reading in bed. She is resting a book on her torso.

Research diary: long-term thinking and lots of reading

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Welcome, Jenn!

We're proud to welcome the Foundation's first Research Fellow!

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Navy corpsmen on a boat looking at a hospital ship

Interview: Navy Medicine on Flickr Commons

Read more about how Navy Medicine uses their Flickr Commons account.

Read the interview
Two photographs of women, side by side in a photo album. There is a ghostly face behind the women in each image

Flickr Commons: Grand Galleries, Admired Albums

Flickr's Albums and Galleries are a great way to find shareable content and curate Flickr Commons massive trove of freely reusable images

Learn how it works
Tommy Dodgen, a four year old boy, stands by the largest lamp in the world: Tampa, Florida

Florida Memory on Flickr Commons

How the State Library & Archives of Florida chooses which unique, fascinating, and quirky images to put on Flickr Commons.

Read the interview
Screenshot of flinumeratr. It's a web app with a single input field at the top, into which somebody has entered a Flickr URL. Below the input form is a purple box explaining that this URL shows the photos in a gallery about celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, and then two photos from the gallery.

Introducing flinumeratr, our first toy

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The team is growing

Welcome, Alex!

Our first Tech Lead started this week, and there's already a very first public repo on Github.

Hooray!
A man standing on top of some dissassembled furniture inside a warehouse full of such furtniture

Sorting a millions-of-things pile

We've decided to create a Collection Development Policy for Flickr Commons.

Read the backstory
engraving image from a book showing a number of devices used in bloodletting.

Is a photo of a drawing a drawing or a photo?

Image classification is an old problem.

See how to do it on Flickr

When past meets predictive

Working ‘field notes’ as a snapshot in time facing computed image generation.

Read up on the research interview

Our reflections about Image Generators

“What would happen if we used AI image generators to recreate The Family of Man?”

Lots to consider

Exploring Generated Imagery

Using the 1955 MoMA exhibition, The Family of Man, as our inspiration, we've created an exploration and time capsule to represent the state of generative AI today.

Explore the creation process
Screenshot of an old map on a newer map

British Library & Flickr Commons

Learn about some great examples of community contributions to the British Library's Flickr Commons account

Read on

"A Generated Family of Man"

Hear a progress report from Juwon on her development of a synthetic "The Family of Man" collection.

Read on
A woman operating a drill as she assembles part of an airplane

Flickypedia: Our Partnership with Wikimedia Commons

Extending and expanding the Flickr2Commons tool in partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation.

Find out more
R&D
Who is The Family of Man?

Visualizing data of a 1955 exhibition

Maya Osaka reports on her findings about The Family of Man

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A Flickr of Humanity: First project in the New Curators program

Behind the scenes of creating V2 of A Flickr of Humanity.

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Bowling team and their trophies
The team is growing…

Welcome, Jessamyn!

Flickr Commons gets a new Community Manager

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Notes from the 100-year plan workshop in Edinburgh

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Why are we doing this?

Hear from Ben MacAskill about why SmugMug + Flickr decided to create the Flickr Foundation.

Find out more
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