At the beginning of January 2011 I launched the Dated Vintage Photographs group on Flickr. After just two weeks it has 140 members and over 900 photographs.
This image is a screengrab of a brand new interactive timeline presenting images from the group. In fact this is just the two years 1882-84 – the whole timeline spans the period 1853 (the earliest image so far) through to 1945 and contains hundreds of images.
I absolutely love what you can get from this visualisation – a real feel for the development of photography, fashion, and even architecture and technology.
Instructions:
– Visit the dated vintage photographs timeline page
– to see it larger click on the ‘full screen’ link
– click and hold anywhere on the timeline, then move your mouse left to right
– if you click on the darker band at the bottom you’ll move faster
– click on any image to pull up a larger version and the image information, plus a link to the original on Flickr
Have fun!
Stop press 18 Jan 2011: have also just created a timeline with photos from The Commons on Flickr
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Technical information:
I used phpFlickr to create the data file of valid group images via the Flickr API, and then the Simile Timeline to display the interactive. All totally free and open source, so huge thanks to everyone behind creating those. I’ve also had some useful pointers and help along the way from Dave Wilkinson (dopiaza)
