January 30, 2007

In modern history's mosaic, photographs are vital tile pieces, providing concise imprints: here is what personalities, celebrities, world leaders, pop-culture watersheds, breaking news events actually looked like. All an Internet user needs is a powerful search engine and, voila, There's Joseph Stalin on the cover of Life, right there on one's desktop.

It was only a matter of time, then, before one of the crown jewels of archival imagery--the Life picture collection--would fall into the hands of the Google goliath. Yesterday, according to a report from media reporter Staci Kramer (a one-time St. Louis stringer for Life), Time Inc. announced that it was finalizing a deal with Google to scan 12 million pictures from Life's storied archives. The purpose? Revenue. Ease-of-access to imagery. Broad exposure for the Life brand.

The downside risk, however, is that once Google gets its grip on these pictures--long protected and cherished by the editors at Time Inc. so that these seminal images would not be misused--the photos may soon belong to all of us. They'll be there for the clicking, there for the taking, there for the Net's new legions of PhotoShopaholics.