martes, julio 19, 2005

Museos fotográficos

El NYT informa de la asociación de dos museos dedicados a preservar fotografías: El George Eastman House y el International Center of Photography, lo que dará como resultado el PhotoMuse.

The Eastman House - the world's oldest photography museum, with more than 400,000 photos and negatives, dating back to the invention of the medium - felt that they needed a New York City presence. And the International Center, a younger institution with a smaller collection, wanted access to Eastman's vast holdings. ... Now both institutions are at work on an ambitious project to create one of the largest freely accessible databases of masterwork photography anywhere on the Web, a venture that will bring their collections to much greater public notice and provide an immense resource for photography aficionados, both scholars and amateurs.

Así que como quien dice, el público será el principal beneficiado al poder disponer de tan extensos archivos online, o por lo menos de buena parte de ellos. La intención por lo menos es buena, y la forma como la están enfocando parece mejor aún:

The creators say the goal is to organize the site so that works can be found not only by the name of the photographer but also in many other ways. For example, a Hine picture of an Italian immigrant couple could be found under the headings of "immigration," or "Italian-Americans" or "Ellis Island" or "urban photography" or under the headings of exhibitions where the photograph has been shown through the years. Each photograph could also be categorized in more technical ways, such as whether it was an albumen print, for example, or a gelatin silver print or even by what type of camera it was taken with.

Casi como decir que los tags llegan a las primeras divisiones de la fotografía. Definitivamente para las grandes cantidades de información que se maneja, la categorización es primordial, permitiendo al usuario llegar más rápido a lo que quiere. Pero pasándonos al ámbito empresrial, no todas las instituciones han comprendido totalmente como es que la información se comparte y permite mayores beneficios en este mundo web.

While there are now dozens of growing digital databases of photography on the Web, many - like Corbis and Getty Images - are commercial sites that do not allow the public unfettered access to their collections. The Photomuse site will join others, like the digital collections of the Library of Congress, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford, England, that are beginning to create what amounts to a huge, free, virtual photography museum on the Web.

Y si para ciertas empresas acostumbradas a trabajar en los antiguos modelos de negocios es difícil de entender, mas aún si todavía obtienen beneficios con ellos, para los independientes que dependen del pago de sus regalías por derechos de autor, también es algo quizás demasiado novedoso hablar de los nuevos conceptos de derechos de autor en la red.

Anthony Bannon, the director of Eastman House, said one of the biggest hurdles encountered by the project - after overcoming the initial cultural resistance of both institutions to share their collections and expertise - has been converting the images of both Eastman and the center. onto a single computer system. (So far, he said, Eastman has digitized almost 140,000 of its photos and center about 30,000.) "It's not just like pushing a button and the images slide over," he said, adding that copyright issues with many photographers could also keep many images off the Web for years. "Some are generous and understand the positive result by having the images seen on our Web site but others are worried about losing opportunities for revenue," Mr. Bannon said. "All of us are still learning about how the Web can be used, I think."

O cómo un post sobre fotografía se transforma en una reflexión pequeñita sobre otros temas más cercanos a los de este blog. Y es que de fotografía no se mucho tampoco. Sólo hago click. Quedaría únicamente preguntarnos por el destino del acervo fotográfico de la nación ¿Donde están los negativos de la obra de Martín Chambi por ejemplo? (espero que bien resguardados). Ah, la foto al inicio del post corresponde a la sede del George Eastman House, y obviamente, ha sido obtenida de su página web.


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