I have been spending a bit of time with Flickr recently and have been impressed with some of the photography I have viewed.
I started wondering if you could source an exhibit like Steichen’s Family of Man using Flickr? They received over 2 million images from photographers across the globe, then winnowed that down to 10,000 and then made a final cut of just over 500 images for the exhibit.
Photographs from both amateurs and professionals were included in the exhibit. How did they get submissions in 1955? I’m sure they used the mass media to reach a global audience. Probably ads in magazines, newspapers, posters in art galleries etc.
How would you do it today? Photographers could tag photos they would like to be considered for submission in Flickr. You could limit submissions by person to keep it manageable. Tags are feeds so you could review the photos via feeds, perhaps even creating a submissions website where folks could view and vote on their favorites. A monumental editing project to say the least, but it was in 1955 as well.
Not really related, but interesting to me, is a project that Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey is undertaking. He wants to take a road trip and photograph the new American Family. He writes, “Anyone will quickly see that my American Family will be (if it works), in fact, a “stylized portrait” of our simmering international stew….”.
I think it is a fascinating idea and the timing seems right. We’ll see if he pulls it off. You can follow him on his blog here.