Notes On Photographs Comes To Life: A Wiki

The George Eastman House needs you! Maybe.

Last April, it announced the creation of The Center for the Legacy of Photography, as well as Notes On Photographs, a collaborative wiki website at which curators, conservators, collectors and the general public would be able to share knowledge about photographic prints -- the camera, the process, the inscriptions, the age, and so on.

I wrote about it all then, and now there's more to report. A recent Eastman House newsletter announced that the site, "dedicated to illustrating key aspects of a photographer's work," is now available.

In truth, the site needs much more content. Emily Welch, the project's manager, tells me that the pages for Alvin Langdon Coburn, Lewis Wickes Hine, and Frederick Henry Evans (his Lincoln Cathedral, 1895, is at right) are "well-populated." Have a look.

But this is where you may come in -- at three possible levels. Those pages are curated, by "invited" curators with proven expertise who volunteer to take responsibility for an article or topic. The curator assesses contributed information and revises a page as appropriate. It's all archived in the wiki histories, so everyone can see decisions about content.

Say you're not in that category.