Photopin

Want copyright cleared images and quickly? PhotoPin will search Flickr for Creative Commons licensed images for you

Just search for any topic using the search box on the Photopin website, preview the photo, and click "get photo" to download the photo as well as the proper attribution link.

Click on the photograph itself to check the precise terms of the Creative Commons licence applied to it. You can then Copy the proper attribution info from Photo Pin and paste it into your document

The Institute of Making

image: Institute of Making: silica aerogel, a glass foam whose nano-structure contains up to 99.8% air :  the world's lightest solid

The Institute of Making is a multidisciplinary research club for those interested in the made world: from makers of molecules to makers of buildings, synthetic skin to spacecraft, soup to diamonds, socks to cities. 

They run  programme of symposia, masterclasses and public events to explore the links between academic research and hands-on experience, and to celebrate the sheer joy of stuff.

Its mission is to provide all makers with a creative home in which to innovate, contemplate and understand all aspects of materials and an inspiring place to explore their relationship to making.

At the heart of the Institute of Making is the Materials Library – a growing repository of some of the most extraordinary materials on earth, gathered together for their ability to fire the imagination and advance conceptualisation. A place in which makers from all disciplines can see, touch, research and discuss, so that they can apply the knowledge and experience gained to their own practice.

Alongside the collection is the MakeSpace – a workshop where members and guests can make, break, design and combine both advanced and traditional tools, techniques and materials.

taken from their website

thank you Ingrid for the introduction!

Historic Photography Uncovered

John Dillwyn Llewelyn

Speaking at the official launch of the new Historic Photography show at the National Museum Cardiff its Director General  David Anderson told his audience  to remember the moment. It was the start of a great and new emphasis on what he called the most important collection in the Museum, its photographs. Thanks to the Esme Fairbairn Trust an ongoing digitisation programme has started. Photographs originating  from all departments in the Museum covering Geology ,  Botany, Social History,  Fine Art and more  are being digitised and will form a publicly accessible database in the near future.David Anderson  told us to look out for much more around Photography than has ever been offered before.

For now go and see this first flowering, the most magical and varied collection of photographs and cameras and explanations of photographic processes. This exhibition traces the evolution of photography, as a scientific process, as a social record and a medium for artistic expression.

The photographic material on display dates from the mid-19th to mid-20th century .My favourites show  the beaches I love; Caswell Bay, Tenby, Three Cliffs looking just like they do today but dotted with little ladies in full blown Victorian and Edwardian garb, extraordinary.
The exhibition continues until 19th April

CC Search (Copyright free images)

from CC Search 

keyword =business meeting

I am often asked to recommend a website to go to for Copyright free images. The Electronic Library at Cardiff Met offers many links to image databases  that we recommend, some (marked with a black or a green copyright symbol)  like Bridgeman Education and Visual Arts Data Service offer copyright free images for educational use.

 I can also recommend a single page to which you can navigate on the internet which will allow you to search a whole selection of different image databases ...not just images of art and design... made available under a  Creative Commons licence.

Creative Common licences all offer, as minimum, permission to copy so long as the image is marked clearly with details of who first created it (attribution). To learn more about Creative Commons licences (which are voluntarily  applied by creators to their works and can apply to text, images , music and all copyrighted materials) you should go here.
To search for all those Creative Commons licensed images  go here. Enter a keyword and select a source to search from the range offered ( various interesting websites ) results will bring back Creative Commons licenced images, moving images and sound.

Pathe News on Youtube

Pathe News Inc.

In 1895 Charles Pathé began his quest to document the historical events of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. By 1914, Pathé produced the first weekly newsreel.
British Pathé, the U.K. newsreel archive company, has uploaded its entire 100-year collection of 85,000 historic films in high resolution to YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/user/britishpathe

The collection, which spans 1896 to 1976, comprises some 3,500 hours of historical footage of major events, notable figures, fashion, travel, sports and culture. It includes extensive film from both World War I and World War II.
The Home page displays a choice of popular uploads, days that shook the world, disasters, inventions, animals, daredevils, celebrities and  compilations.  'Weirdest newsreels' includes a newsreel about a progressive school , a tall man marrying a short lady and  an obese three year old . In contrast you can also find footage from the Battle of the Somme , the SAS storming the Iranian Embassy in London and a documentary on the assassination of the American President John F Kennedy claiming the CIA killed him.

Copyright and images-advice sheet from the Intellectual Property Office

Apollo and Allegory of Painting, from the Loves of the Gods
Giulio Bonasone (Italian, active Rome and Bologna, 1531–after 1576) 
from the  Metropolitan Museum of Art 


With Flickr, Facebook and Instagram all becoming such a big part of everyday lives, people can often forget their legal responsibilities when using images and photos online. 

In order to ensure consumers have a better understanding of copyright law the government has launched a ‘copyright notices service’. 

The first notice published today, provides guidance about things to be aware of when uploading and using images on the internet. This includes advice for situations where you want to use photos taken by a professional photographer or what you need to consider before uploading images  to social media sites .

Copyright notice #1 can be found here: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/c-notice-201401.pdf

How we view Civil Rights, the images, the meanings and the roles of photography

Human Rights Human Wrongs 5.45pm 5 March 2014 at the National Museum Cardiff in the Reardon Smith lecture theatre

Bob Fitch, Martin L. King (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.),

Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America,

December 1965.

Reproduction from the Black Star Collection,

Ryerson University. Courtesy of the Ryerson Image Centre.

Using the 1948 Universal Declaration of human rights as a point of departure, Mark Sealy, MBE, RPS Hood Medal, Director Autograph ABP and Founding CEO of Rivington Place London, examines whether images of political struggle, suffering, and of victims of violence work for or against humanitarian objectives, especially when considering questions of race, representation, ethical responsibility and the cultural position of the photographer.

The talk will reflect on the imagery that has informed perceptions of civil rights, ranging from historic events such as the Selma to Montgomery March and Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech, to the independence movements in many African countries as well as more recent examples of injustice within wider global conflicts. Here the historical and contemporary roles of photography to validate and question the case for civil and human rights will be examined from different perspectives.

The event is FREE but booking is essential as places are limited.

This lecture forms part of a series accompanying a project by  National Museum Wales to work on its rich and diverse historic photographic collections

To reserve your place,  email: Historic.Photography@museumwales.ac.uk

with your name and contact telephone number.

High Resolution Wellcome Images free to download and use

Credit: Wellcome Library, London
Three Navajo men proceeding as war gods.
Silver gelatine print 1904 By: Edward S. Curtis
Published:   1904. 

Cardiff Met Electronic Library>Databases A-Z contains a link to the Wellcome Images  database. Wellcome Images is also available on the internet here.

Wellcome has just announced over 100,000 high resolution images including manuscripts, paintings, etchings, early photography and advertisements are now freely available to be used for commercial or personal purposes under a Creative Commons licence  if accompanied by an acknowledgement of the original source (Wellcome Library, London). The images can be downloaded in high-resolution directly from the Wellcome Images website to be freely copied, distributed, edited, manipulated and built upon for personal or commercial use. The images range from ancient medical manuscripts to etchings by artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Francisco Goya. Simon Chaplin, Head of the Wellcome Library, says “Together the collection amounts to a dizzying visual record of centuries of human culture, and our attempts to understand our bodies, minds and health through art and observation. Using the advanced search you can search the collection by a huge range of different techniques including etching, ultrasound, silver gelatin print and my all-time favourites;  the exquisitely lovely 300+ transmission electron micrographs.

New link for images on Databases A-Z : Flickr Commons

Our Electronic Library at Cardiff Met contains over 100 databases and also includes links to quality websites. Go to the Electronic Library and click Databases A-Z (Cardiff Met users only).

Image taken from page 582 of 'The United States of America. A study of the American Commonwealth, its natural resources, people, industries, manufactures, commerce, and its work in literature, science, education and self-government. [By various authors.] 

A new link on Databases A-Z will lead you to Flickr Commons.  The key goal of The Commons is to share hidden treasures from the world's public photography archives. Recently The British Library has added over a million images onto Flickr Commons for anyone to use, remix and repurpose. These images were taken from the pages of 17th, 18th and 19th century books digitised by Microsoft . The images cover a wide range  of subjects: There are maps, geological diagrams,  illustrations some beautiful or very colourful, comical satire, illuminated and decorative letters, landscapes, wall-paintings and  more.
Something to explore over the Christmas break...

learn how to search the internet for legal Audio, Video and Image resources of quality

Learn how to use the Internet to find copyright cleared images for your work, Jisc who champion the use of digital technologies in UK education and research have created a free online tutorial covering al you need to know to become an expert image searcher.

Use this free, interactive tutorial to improve your image searching skills.

Two other tutorials cover audio and moving image resources, find them in The Virtual training Suite

 L

The Bible of Color Theory now an App

Josef Albers' Interaction of Color, was first conceived of as a handbook and teaching aid for artists, instructors, and students, presenting Albers' ideas of colour experimentation. Originally published by Yale University Press in 1963 as a limited silkscreen edition with 150 color plates, Interaction of Color first appeared in paperback in 1971, featuring ten representative color studies chosen by Albers. The paperback has remained in print ever since and remains one of the most influential resources on colour.

Last week, to commemorate the book’s 50th anniversary, Yale University Press released the Interaction of Color app for the iPad, a modernized, interactive presentation of Albers’ teachings. With fingers instead of paintbrushes and a touch screen instead of paper, users can move and manipulate over 125 color plates in 60 interactive studies. Concepts like colour relativity and vibrating boundaries come to life. The app’s developers used paper, scissors, and glue to complete the exercises, as Albers’s students would have done, in order to experience Albers’ process and methodology. The text was then meticulously translated into app form--they even preserved his original typeface and text columns.
Alongside the book’s full text are two hours of video footage including interviews with noteworthy practitioners such as textile designer Christopher Farr, graphic designer Peter Mendelsund, painters Anoka Faruqee and Brice Marden, product designer Brian Mullan (director of sourcing and production at Fab), quilt and fabric designer Denyse Schmidt, architect Anabelle Seldorf, and cultural historian Nicholas Fox Weber (exec­u­tive direc­tor of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation).
The free download allows you to view Chapter X, including text, commentary, and two interactive plates, and to experiment with all the features, including the color palette tool. The full version of the app includes the complete text, over 125 color plates, over 60 interactive studies, and a wide range of video commentaries, interviews, and additional features. The full version is available as an in-app purchase for $9.99.

Read more at

http://yupnet.org/interactionofcolor/

Alinari online-free to explore

"Dreaming of pirates", Terrazza Mascagni, Livorno

Photographer: Vestrini, Michele

Date of photography: 1958

Alinari black and white photographs were used by art historians before the days of good quality colour reproductions in books so that they could  view the representations of buildings and works of art that the Italian company photographed. Art history departments bought them for study-put on reserve and/or available for browsing always as representations of a building or a painting, not seen then as interesting as examples of photography.

Over 167,000 photographs have now been digitised and are available on subscription as Alinari 24 Ore to individuals and Institutions at a reasonable price.

Subject areas which would find these images useful as well as art and architectural history include cultural studies,  history, economics, sociology and science. It is also possible to search by photographer’s name.

You  may be interested in the free access for educational use. The database can be searched and images have a small watermark on them (as in the image above) until you buy the image or subscribe.

Look here for details.

is pinning OK?

Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, loops7


JiscLegal is a great support to Education when dealing with issues of copyright especially those coming up in the digital arena. It exists to 'give Legal Guidance for ICT Use in Education, Research and External Engagement'. The latest advice sheet on issues arising out of pinterest and image sharing websites is fabulously clear.
Pinterest
According to Mediabistro, users are spending more time on Pinterest than Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn combined. Recent statistics show this social networking site has just reached 48.7 million users.

Zandra Rhodes goes digital

You can access VADS From our Electronic Library   by selecting the Database A-Z section and clicking ‘V’ for VADS

Researchers and students from the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) have worked alongside Zandra Rhodes to prepare, photograph, and catalogue 500 dresses and garments selected from the designer’s private archive at her studio in London, including pieces worn by icons such as Princess Diana, Jackie Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, and Diana Ross.

The project has also created contextual learning materials which explore Zandra Rhodes' creative processes and production techniques, through video interviews, video tutorials, and drawings available at: zandrarhodes.ucreative.ac.uk. Here also you can see video interviews with Zandra Rhodes about the inspiration behind key, favourite garments selected by the designer. There are also  video tutorials in which the designer and her specialist studio team demonstrate some of the techniques involved in creating a handmade Zandra Rhodes couture piece. In addition, there is a unique, comprehensive, and previously unseen series of fashion drawings from the 'Zandra Rhodes Style Bibles.'

Zandra Rhodes trained at one of UCA's founder colleges, the Medway College of Design, and is among the most famous names in British fashion over the last fifty years . Her er work includes the design of haute couture for clients such as Elizabeth Taylor, Freddie Mercury, and Diana, Princess of Wales.

See the press release on the UCA website at:

http://www.ucreative.ac.uk/news/2013/march/joanna-lumley

See the project in action in the ITV news report at:

http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/update/2012-07-09/zandras-iconic-outfits-out-of-the-closet/

To find out more about how the digital collection was created, see the project blog at:

http://zandrarhodesarchive.wordpress.com

Exploring London/in the Field in Cardiff

 

                         London is one of the greenest cities in the world from Exploring 20th Century London

 

Our Level 4 undergraduates are currently 'in the Field' exploring various places around Cardiff, researching them in groups made up of students from all our different art and design disciplines. They will soon return and engage in creating physical outcomes to their investigations back in their practice studios. I think they may be interested to see how many different aspects there are to a city and how these present visually on this rather fab website.

 Exploring 20th Century London

Phase I of the Exploring 20th century London project is a partnership project between four museums in London:

• Museum of London (MoL)
• London Transport Museum (LTM)
• Jewish Museum, London
• Museum of Croydon

The project’s aim is to make the collections held by these museums more accessible, but to do so in a way that links the objects in the collections with the broader history of London. All objects and images featured on the site speak of the real events and experiences of twentieth-century London.
The content covers different types of objects: from Routemaster buses to architectural designs; from 1970s platform shoes to oral history recordings; from paintings and artworks to family photographs. It also includes a mass of supporting information.
more information about this project here

Your Paintings and your librarian!

The BBC hosts a website that documents all paintings in public ownership-those paintings that lurk in council offices, libraries, and slide libraries as well as the ones we get to see in the major art galleries and museums! The portrait above that a recent Fine Art graduate painted of me is just one of the 212,000 piantings now online and viewable by location, artist name or title.
Here are the FAQ's that answer questions such as who is behind the project, why no watercolours and also crucially  how many are on public display (20%)-a low figure which goes to show how valuable a service this website is...
Next time we have a Welsh Librarians' conference at the wonderful Gregynog Hall I am going in search of this fine specimen!                                         

 
















 

and this beauty painted by the same artist   

 

 

Decorating with Old Masters

Dutch art director Christian Borstlap created this film for the new Rijksmuseum project Rijksstudio. The film includes 211 artworks from the museum's online collection.

Video: Part of a Bigger Plan
Music: 'Dreaming' by Allo, Darlin

The Rijksmuseum uses Rijksstudio to make more than 125,000 objects from the collection digitally accessible, free of charge. You can zoom in, share them, and ‘like’ them. You can also create collections of your own, using your favourite images and details. Not only that, but the Rijksmuseum is also inviting you to use these images to create beautiful products. At this resolution, a single detail is still sharp enough to decorate a car.

 

This page shows some examples of other people’s creations and offers links to websites that supply various forms of printing on demand. Using them you could order wallpaper , decorate a scooter, have a vinyl foil for your phone, all of them featuring works of art from the Rijksmuseum

dishonesty and other issues in The CRITICAL COMMONS

 SCALAR  is a web based authoring and publishing tool that 'makes it easy for authors to write significant sized born-digital scholarship online. Scalar enables users to assemble media from multiple sources and juxtapose them with their own writing in a variety of ways, with minimal technical expertise required'.

Part of the SCALAR toolset is access to Critical Commons a repository of copyright cleared audio visual materials.

Do you want to illustrate Deleuze with a clip from Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) or read the lecture, view the clips pertaining to Synthetic Sexuality: The Allure of Humanity and the Subversion of Perfection' ? Or  (see the image above ) view a scene from a Simpsons episode about issues of stealing to make a point in your study of economics ? They are all available from The Critical Commons.

The largest subset within the Critical Commons media database is produced by a senior lecturer in Economics at Penn State University and author of the book Economics in the Movies, Dirk Mateer and comprises a huge collection of clips from popular culture that illustrate principles of economics, ranging from game theory to opportunity cost. Dirk's database is called the  "Econ Media Library" . Go here to understand the concept of price elasticity of demand and leveraging elastic demand by laughing as Butters from South Park decides to sell hugs for $2 when he discovers that not everyone can afford kisses at the kissing booth for $5. 

Critical Commons is  well worth a visit whatever your subject area.

travel to World Wonders from home

Would you like to take a journey on the Rhaetian Railway through the Swiss Alps? Or perhaps you’d prefer to explore the mosaics of Pompeii in Italy. Or gaze upon the nine-story Roman aqueduct in Segovia, Spain. Or track down the Aboriginal rock art at Kakadu National Park in Australia.

Google Street View has left the road and photographed some of the world’s most impressive monuments and parks. Launched at the end of May in Madrid, the World Wonders Project is the latest creation from the Paris-based Google Cultural Institute, a wing of the company that aims to spread culture and history to users around the globe.
To scan inside the Nijo Castle in Kyoto and traverse the grounds of Stonehenge, Google had to ditch its typical car-mounted scanners. Instead it created image-capture equipment suitable for adapted tricycles and vertical trolleys that can be pushed around to capture indoor sites. These trikes globe-trotted for a whole year, sailing down the Amazon River and sitting atop the Glacier Express train in Switzerland.

To document 132 heritage sites worldwide, the Google team has partnered with content providers such as UNESCO, the World Monuments Fund, and Getty Images The site is  geared towards educational uses , as both students and teachers can download free lesson plans and presentations.

Google World Wonders Project is here


A related video explains the background

Another Google Cultural Institute project launched early last year was The Art Project a collaboration with 17 museums and covering  about 1,000 works of art. In April 2012 , the updated version contained 32,000 artworks from 155 museums. The institute has also digitized Nelson Mandela’s archives, the Dead Sea scrolls, and documents and photos from the Yad Vashem Centre for Holocaust research.

Thousands of high quality freely available images from a Baltimore Museum

The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland is internationally renowned for its collection of art . It offers an overview of world art from pre-dynastic Egypt to 20th-century Europe, and counts among its many treasures Greek sculpture and Roman sarcophagi; medieval ivories and Old Master paintings; Art Deco jewelry and 19th-century European and American masterpieces.

In 2011, the Walters launched a redesigned works of art website with 10,000 online artwork images freely licensed under a Creative Commons license.

 Apart from their image rich website,  works of art from this museum have been donated as  19,000 + freely-licensed images  to WikimediaCommons. This is one of the largest and most comprehensive such releases made by any museum.

The images and their associated information join the collection of more than 12 million freely usable media files, which make up the image repository for Wikipedia.

The image donation is part of the Walters Museum’s larger initiative to provide free public access to its collection, both online and offline, beginning with the removal of admission fees in 2006.