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.
I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.
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.
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.
Seems a 24-esq conspiracy has robbed the situation room…who will Jack have to torture at flickr to get it back?!
:OP
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.
Seems to me the men in black are cracking down; the photo’s gone missing! CALL JACK BAUER!
Seems they decided an alternative shot worked better?
I’ve replaced the image with the alternate they provided in their stream.
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.
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
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