Historical Images Presentation:

Introduction Art Resource Library of Congress Getty/Hulton Military Image Bank Next >> << Back

On the more commercial and journalistic side of the spectrum is the Getty/Hulton Archive. The present more current event images, but also has a good collection of early pop culture and war images. Like the LOC, Getty offers an offline search for images. Unlike the LOC, all images from Getty are only usable for a fee, but that fee assures a quality digital copy of the image and one time usage rights. In their current events section, they present the images as a photo essay, and give their interpretation for the user. If the user searches for images, then interpretation becomes what is searched and returned as matches. Since only a portion of their archives are presented on the web, the items scanned we thought to be of general interest, or had meaning to the individual who entered it into the database. For example, not may images remain of early historical figures so there is not much variety in what is presented from a search. However, with more recent events, there are more images and thus what is presented is often a matter of what the Archive though was important or most relevant to a particular subject. The site itself is easy to navigate, even if the display area scrolls a bit too much. The audience is probably the general public who has an interest in photojournalism. A similar site to Getty is the Associated Press (AP). AP requires the user to register sign on before any searches can be made. This is good for those who will use AP often, but for the casual user, this is perhaps not the best site to use. Although they have a very long history of covering world events, their online archive and search engine are still under going improvements. Currently, the search engine is cramped and requires scrolling in the individual frames of the window. The amount of pictures available is limited, and subjected to the choices made by those creating the databases. Offline, they have very good researchers who know what is available and will process the users request in a timely fashion.