Photo Reference Library

[JSGerson]

Has anyone started a photo library of reference material for specific ships, say USS Constitution for example. I've got thousands of images I use as reference material for the Constitution that I gathered from the internet as well as pictures I shot. Some of us would like to share photos we've gathered and pool them into categorized and organized library of sorts but outside of a specific builder's build log. If so, where is it. If not, why not? 

[ccoyle]

2 hours ago, JSGerson said:

If not, why not? 

 

The most likely reasons are

1. no one has asked for one (or at least very few people have asked), and
2. it would probably entail a not insignificant amount of work for an MSW staff member.

On top of those two reasons, sharing photos gleaned from the internet often constitutes some form of IP infringement.

[Chuck]

All we have to do is add another category for folks in the Gallery so folks can create albums in it.  
 

What to call it?

 

“photos of historical vessels or museum ships”

 

something like that but I am worried folks will start adding copyrighted photos they find on the web etc.  Some dont know any better…it could be an issue for us to moderate.
 

For example you just cant go to the Sultana official website and start scrubbing photos to put in an album here of their sailing replica.  Ten bucks says that starts to happen immediately.

 

Chuck

[bruce d]

How about making it mandatory to cite the source of the photo? The mods simply delete-with-no-appeal if a citation/source is not included. 

[Roger Pellett]

As a middle of the road solution, why not a digital bibliography where people post web addresses for photos pertaining to projects that they have researched.  These could be looked up as needed and the copyright issue avoided.

 

Roger

[mtaylor]

Maybe just call it "Historcal Ships"?  A first look, it's sounds like a great idea.  But there will probably  be a huge question over pictures being copyrighted and without vetting them, will really get problematic as each picture would need to be checked.

[glbarlow]

I’d imagine hundreds of photos that don’t have a high call rate would become a storage problem for the servers, is there heavy enough demand to warrant the storage space, do moderators want the workload and accountability for copyright monitoring. I know I wouldn’t be a user for something I would more likely Google. 

Edited May 24, 2022 by glbarlow

[mtaylor]

Speaking only for myself, I sure as heck wouldn't want to spend my days and nights checking photos for copyright.

[Bob Cleek]

It's an interesting idea, but the readily available search engines like Google, Bing, Duck Duck Go, and the rest all have an "images" toggle so all you have to do is search for, say, "USS Constitution" and hit "images" and you'll get a ton of them. To some extent, a data base of ship pictures would be redundant. 

 

On the other hand, if members were willing to supply it, there could be a database of "modeler's photos" that would be useful. If the shutterbugs were willing, it would be great for somebody to download a few hundred digital photos of a vessel like the Charles W. Morgan showing all sorts of details of the deck and rigging from a bunch of different angles, or close-ups of all the gun tackle on a cannon on Constitution. I have a book in my library, the title of which I can't remember, that is full of generic photographs for modelers to use as a reference when modeling. It's primarily for modern ships. I haven't looked at it in a while. If you could go and find a bunch of photos of deck winches from all angles and things like that, it would probably be useful.