The Life Photo Archive Sees The Light Of Day Via Crowley Imaging

Imagine seeing 75 years of history scroll across your screen every day. For two years. And you can't talk about it. Such has been life (pun intended) for approximately 20 Crowley Company employees tasked with digitizing over 10 million images from Time Inc.'s LIFE magazine archives. Working since December 2006 and led by project manager DeAnne Larsen, the Crowley staff has witnessed never-publicized photos of distinguished personalities and celebrities, world events, wars, scientific advances and the intimate drama of daily life. From rural towns to big cities to a dog with two heads, they've seen—and scanned—it all.

The Collection Known as LIFE's Photo Archive, the project has been a digitization of the historic photographic images taken for LIFE magazine, which printed from 1936 to 1972 and again from 1978 to 2000. The collection includescolor and black and white negatives, transparencies, reflective prints and other photographic material. The LIFE Photo Archive on Google, when complete, will be among the largest professional photography collections on the web and is one of the largest scanning projects ever undertaken. The archives contain photographs from over 50 world-renowned photojournalists including Margaret Bourke-White, Ed Clark, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Nina Leen, Gordon Parks and others. The collection is available online free for personal and research purposes. Copyright and ownership of all images remain with Time Inc. and high-quality photographic prints can be purchased at the site.