The President’s Flickr Stream
P042409PS-0297
Originally uploaded by The Official White House Photostream
The White House has, in their continuing effort to embrace social media of just about every kind, put up an official Flickr stream with the work of White House photographer Pete Souza. It’s also all shared under the Creative Commons Attribution license (why aren’t they just purely public domain? I’m not entirely sure.) which means you may start seeing more of them here.
By the by, I chose this photo so that if maybe the 24 writers and producers were around, they could see what the actual White House Situation Room looks like. Instead of whatever magical bullshit fakery room they use each week. Pay attention jerks, the rest of us have the internet and we’re not afraid to use it.
Anyhow, I know I could lose the rest of the day to this stream, so if I go missing, I’ll likely be in rapt attention of The White House Flickr Stream.
Like
Comments
9 Responses to “The President’s Flickr Stream”
April 29th, 2009 at 10:37 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the_U.S._government
If Pete Souza is a government employee, the photos are non-copyrightable in the US ONLY. But the US government still holds copyright in foreign countries. So since Flickr serves the whole world, they need to be able to provide an appropriate license to non-US users of the photos. While public domain would be nice, the concept is not universal to every country’s copyright law (and where it does exist, what it means can vary). An attribution license seems sufficiently non-onerous to me.
April 29th, 2009 at 10:38 am
So cool, Tom. Great find! I have to say though that most of the photos seem like quick snapshots that almost anyone with a camera could have taken.
April 29th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Seems a 24-esq conspiracy has robbed the situation room…who will Jack have to torture at flickr to get it back?!
:OP
April 29th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Half of photography is being in the right place at the right time, Max :D
But, there are shots in there that are extremely well composed, though. Souza’s doing his thing, no question.
April 29th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Seems to me the men in black are cracking down; the photo’s gone missing! CALL JACK BAUER!
April 29th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Seems they decided an alternative shot worked better?
I’ve replaced the image with the alternate they provided in their stream.
April 29th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Or being paid to be in the right place all of the time. :)
There are some interesting photos for sure, but many seem to just capture the event which I guess is Souza’s job (and my dream job). I believe he shoots with the Canon 5D Mark I/II which is what he used to take this terrible portrait.
April 29th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
ReadWriteWeb has info on this.
From the post:
“The photos aren’t Public Domain because Flickr doesn’t offer Public Domain licensing as an option.”
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_obamas_flickr_photos_arent_in_the_public_domai.php
May 5th, 2009 at 9:00 am
[...] The President’s Flickr Stream [...]