LOC Wise Guide: American Vacation

by Kelly Amabile on

The Library of Congress has a nifty online magazine called The Wise Guide that appears each month. It’s a creative tool that the LOC folks use to communicate interesting facts and tidbits from their massive repository of photos, videos, prints, audio recordings and films. The website is spirited and fun in design — who knew a .gov could be so engaging? (They smartly partnered with the Ad Council on this public service announcement.)

This month The Wise Guide takes readers back in time through a series of old-school example of US holiday travel. The Vacation feature points to historical photos from the Library’s Pictorial Americana collection that illustrates what traveling and vacations were like in the 19th century. There are classic pictures of summer trolley cars, grand hotels, roadside inns and automobile parades. This one is my favorite. (Be sure to read the caption.)

The June Wise Guide also features a page all about the Grand Ole’ American Flag, just in time for Independence Day.

View a World of Photos with Flickrvision

by Justin Glow on

Flickrvision is a simple website that combines the power of Google Maps with the worldwide usage of photo hosting website Flickr.com.

Flickrvision pulls newly-added photos from Flickr and places them at the location in which they were taken onto a map in real time. This allows you to sit back and watch the map populate itself with images taken from all over the world — and it’s quite addicting!

The website is in beta, so there may be a few bugs yet to work out. However, creator Dave Troy (who also made the popular Twittervision) says he recently made some tweaks to decrease the time it takes to load an image. Awesome.

Suri – Photo of the Millenium

by Iva Skoch on

I realize that I am–like–3 days late with this warning (I gotta get better with my celebrity gossip skills) but I simply couldn’t not say anything.

All of you profit-hungry freelance photographers out there, you can apparently leave your cameras at home from now on. Those $3Million some hoped to get for that first picture of one of this year’s premier celebrity babies is gone forever. Since Suri, Tom Cruise’s and Katie Holmes’ baby has finally been photographed and published by the October issue of Vanity Fair, I am guessing that the value of any snapshots taking “in the wild” has gone down tremendously.

Well, folks, there is always wedding photography.

Photo of the Day (07/22/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on


Having spent the last few months of my life walking across the country it is safe to say my feet endured some amount of wear and tear along the way. Not too much ache and pain though. However, looking at this picture captured by Irish Guy from his Round the World Trips at the Sri Mariamman Temple in Singapore makes my feet feel burned and sore. According to Irish Guy this fire-walking ceremony is a major event at this Hindu Festival where devotees honor the goddess Draupadi. After walking across the fiery coals without wincing or displaying any type of pain, they wade through goat’s milk and then stain their feet with yellow tumeric. I’m just glad that wasn’t a requirement for my tour across the U.S. Read more at Irish Guy’s photostream in our Gadling Flickr pool.