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HistoryPin: Maps, Photos and Stories

Oct 6th, 2010
by pollyalida.
2 comments

I’m getting delightfully lost in the HistoryPin website. Old photos, layered on top of Google Maps and stories to go with them – all things that I love to explore.

What is HistoryPin?

The site invites the public to dig out, upload and pin their own old photos, as well as the stories behind them, onto the Historypin map. Uniquely, Historypin allows users to layer their old images onto modern Street View scenes, revealing a series of windows into the past.

Historypin is one in a series of projects created as part of We Are What We Do’s campaign to get generations talking more, sharing more and coming together more often.  (http://goo.gl/7URp)

Wouldn’t this would be a great project for libraries and schools to get involved with? It makes me think of the wonderful Remember When photo & memory project done by the Ipswich Library in Queensland Australia.

(The screenshots at the top are then & now images of a tunnel called the Argyle Cut that was dug through a sandstone ridge in Sydney in the mid 1800′s. )

SimpleViewer Photo Gallery

Sep 4th, 2010
by pollyalida.
1 comment

SimpleViewer creates elegant photo galleries for spiffing up your web sites. The galleries can be standalone pages or embedded in other pages. But what has me excited is the WordPress plugin.

The SimpleViewer plugin adds a little button to the  editing toolbar that pulls up a control panel. Photos can be pulled from a flickr account or your WordPress photo uploads. There are a few settings for size and style. But nothing complicated or confusing! This is truly simple and elegant. I think this is my new favorite WordPress plugin!

SimpleViewer requires JavaScript and the Flash Player. Get Flash.

p.s.  For some unknownable reason, this plugin worked fine on another WordPress site, but wasn’t working here. After a day or two and much research, it works. But not for any reason that makes sense.  Maybe I just clicked the mouse a little harder today. :-) Yep, that’s it.

ImageCodr – Handy Photo Crediting Tool

May 10th, 2010
by pollyalida.
1 comment

ImageCodr - A handy tool that simplifies finding, using and crediting flickr photos for reuse on web pages. It creates a block of code that displays the photo, the photographer’s flickr name, links back to the flickr photo page and notes the licensing on the photo – all in one handy chunk of code that’s ready to copy & paste to the spot where you want the photo to appear. (via: Download Squad)

How to:

  • Drop the bookmarklet on your browser toolbar
  • Use the search page to locate photos in flickr or search flickr directly.
  • Click on the bookmarklet.
  • Choose what size photo you want to use
  • Copy the code for use on your web/blog/wiki pages.

And voila!

Words and pictures and storytelling

Jan 13th, 2010
by pollyalida.
7 comments

octopus' garden in the shade

I love words and pictures and storytelling. And I love playing with tools that help us tell our stories. So it’s no surprise that I’m having great fun playing with  Flickr Poet from Stories in Flight which I discovered last week from a colleague’s flickr stream. Pop in a poem, song lyrics or just random thoughts and see what you get!

Flickr poet pulls in photos from flickr that match your words in some way. Click on “Show Story” over and over to get different interpretations of your words. What a great way to enhance a poetry or storytelling project.

For a school project, it might be more interesting to have students pick out photos themselves and create their own presentations.

Tools to find photos

Finding photos is pretty easy, finding photos that are licensed for reuse under Creative Commons can be a bit more of a challenge. (more…)

Galleries on Flickr

Sep 15th, 2009
by pollyalida.
2 comments

Flickr has a new galleries feature that lets you create sets of up to 18 photos around any idea, theme or concept you find interesting. This encourages you to explore other people’s photos and search beyond just your own contacts photos for interesting content.

My first thought was that it will help me organize some of the photos I’ve added to my favorites. I ‘fave’ lots of photos and then have trouble finding them again. Galleries might help with with this. (anyone else have great ways of organizing favorited photos?)

The limit of 18 photos encourages flickr members to act as “curators” and gather the best work representing a theme. Seems like a great presentation method for a school project.

Thanks to ShellyS for adding one of my photos to her Simply Awesome gallery or I might have missed this new feature!

Get more info from flickr galleries help.

Have some PhotoFunia

Aug 7th, 2009
by pollyalida.
2 comments

PhotoFunia: Pick from around 100 photo effects, upload your photo and have some fun. Their face recognition software does a great job of inserting your face into the scene.

That’s me, rocking out. And no I never had a bubble do!
Image and video hosting by TinyPic

And my Face Your Manga avatar as graffiti.
PhotoFunia-1c683e2

It’s Friday, have some fun.

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