Tech T.I.P. – October 22, 2009

Cemetery Photos on Flickr
by Denise Olson

On October 10, 2009, the 4,000,000,000th (yes, that's billion) photo was posted on Flickr.  I love Flickr for many reasons.  It's a fascinating collection of people and places from all over the world.  The growing Commons section is bringing historical images out of the vaults for us to enjoy.  It's a place where people who share the same interests can meet and share their photos.

It's also my backup/archive for all my photos and scanned images.  That includes all the photos I take in cemeteries.  And, it appears that I'm not the only person posting cemetery photos here.  There are more than 1.2 million cemetery photos on Flickr.

You'll be surprised to learn that not everyone is interested in cemeteries for their historical importance.  Many enjoy them just for their beauty.  Regardless of their motive, they have helped to build a huge archive documenting cemeteries from around the world.  And, thanks to Flickr, you can visit them from your desktop.  Here's a tiny sample.

Storm Crypt has this gorgeous photo of a cross marking the spot of a sunken cemetery in the Phillippines.  Visit his photo page for the rest of this story.

This captivating photo of the Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans was taken by Dystopos.

Monceau has built a mosaic of tombstone circles which link to each original stone.

Visit the Netherlands American Cemetery thanks to Rob Hogeslag.

Or enjoy an aerial view of the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial also from Storm Crypt.

One more military memorial I couldn't resist—the War Dog Cemetery in Guam—taken by BL1961.

Visit the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague thanks to left-hand.

nick.garrod takes us down the Egyptian Avenue at Highgate Cemetery.

The photo of Mount Union Cemetery taken by ...-Wink-... is beautiful and the description on the photo page points us to a site on RootsWeb providing the cemetery's inventory.

My search for the word "cemetery" filtered to display only those licensed with a shareable Creative Commons license returned almost 200,000 photos.  The same search without the filter returned more than 1.2 million.  While many of the photos are "art" shots, I was pleasantly surprised to find most of the photos I looked at included some sort of description.  Many had detailed descriptions. 

Flickr has a group feature which gives its users the ability to connect with others sharing similar interests.  There are a number of Flickr groups dedicated to cemeteries.  The Graves, Tombs and Cemeteries group alone has 23,000 members.  I belong to the Southern Cemeteries, Georgia Cemeteries, Florida Cemetery, Coastal Empire Cemeteries, and Graves of Veterans of the American Civil War groups.  They offer not only a place to collect the photos of those areas, but also a way to connect with others who may know something about a particular cemetery.  If you're trying to track down an ancestor in a distant location, you might get a hit on a photo or photographer offering useful information.

Flickr offers all users the opportunity to post photos at no charge, but a Pro account only costs $24.95 a year and allows unlimited uploads and storage organized into an unlimited number of sets and collections.  This is an awesome platform for protecting your photos from disaster, but as you see here it is so much more.

Even if you aren't interested in Flickr to protect or display your photos, stop by and visit some of the cemeteries documented here.  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.