Yuen-Fu Monastery, Formosa, 1870, John Thomson
One of the great joys of the past few years has been the movement by museums, libraries and archives to digitize and make accessible hundreds of thousands of photographs in their collections. It amazes me how little The Commons is discussed in the endless debates about the pros and cons of digitization. Never before have so many images by masters and commoners been accessible for study, inspiration, education or appropriation. My new favorite site, Indicommons, aims to make these photographic commons more well known.
