National Geographic has launched a Tumblr to showcase some of the amazing unseen and rare photos from its historical archives.
One of my favourite places on the web for looking at gorgeous photographs is National Geographic. Of course, the National Geographic Society has been around for a darn sight longer than the internet — since 1888, to be precise.
Naturally, the Society's 125 years of archives are quite large — but since they're print photographs, they're less accessible to the public. Until now.
In honour of that 125th anniversary, National Geographic has launched Found: a Tumblr that showcases some of the hidden treasures of the society's archives, scanned and uploaded to the internet for public viewing.
The collection is curated by National Geographic's William Bonner, who is in charge of the Society's massive photo archive in Washington DC. For 30 years, Bonner has had care of the collection — and even now, still finds fascinating stories and photos he hadn't seen before.
"Many of these photos have never been published and are rarely seen by the public," said National Geographic on the Tumblr. "We hope to bring new life to these images by sharing them with audiences far and wide. Their beauty has been lost to the outside world for years, and many of the images are missing their original date or location."
Found will be an ongoing project, and what the Society hopes will be a "great adventure" shared around the world.