You know what’s one of the best unrecognized sources for pictures? Wikimedia Commons. Or, as I like to shorthand it as, WikiCommons. God, it’s such a beautiful resource for images. An entire archive with no BS guessing games; you’re told right away by an indicator if an image is copyrighted or public domain.
I think what I really love, though, is the nature of the photographs. Oftentimes, they aren’t staged or intentional. They’re contributed by people capturing moments in real-time. It makes everything feel a lot like a time capsule, like you’re viewing small moments across the globe, sometimes in unknown places. It’s all so natural. Plus, all the images are so…aesthetically pleasing to look at. I love it.
Tonight I was working on an assignment and got sidetracked looking at archived photographs of my city. I browsed every catalogue year like it was going out of style. Sometimes I’d come across an image from 2008 or 2009, for instance, and I’d immediately recall a time where the buildings and everything in them did indeed look like they did on the pictures.
In other news, I love how you can definitely see where Valve and the Left 4 Dead franchise were influenced from the real life graffiti after the flood. Playing L4D2 always gave me that impression, an article analyzing the storytelling through graffiti confirmed it, and now I can see the real life pictures from when these events were playing out, not just the faded ones that remain today.
I love public domain materials. Yum.
This is not an affiliated post. I just love Wikimedia lol ★
HAPPY 
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