110,000 Photographers

by Karolina Sotomayor

Image courtesy of New York Public Library

If you are a photography lover like Musée, you will find the following information as useful and entertaining as we did when we first discovered it. Amongst the many wonders the Internet has to offer, search engines that provide complete and in-depth information are essentials to make the research process even more enjoyable.  

As I was looking for content for our upcoming issue, I stumbled upon the New York Public Library’s innovative search engine called Photographers’ Identities Catalog. The latter allows you to access complete profiles of over one hundred thousand photographers worldwide. The names range from the earliest days of the medium to the most recent ones. The search engine filters down photographers’ names according to date, format, source, process and nationality amongst others.

I have to admit the interactive map, which is its most interesting tool, might make you feel intrusive. This feature, however, allows you to track any photographer’s location, in case you need to know where they are currently working on their next masterpiece. The map also helps you find where a particular body of work by any of the included artists is located. PIC allows you to trace back to the first days of the medium all the way back to the seventeenth century.

No matter what type of genre you are looking for, PIC is sure to become one of your most cherished photography catalogues.