The historical significance of photography through the ages is at risk of being lost with the endless stream of trigger-happy images. In order to ensure its safety and continuance for years to come, Flickr and SmugMug are coming together to protect these images in a new partnership called Flickr Foundation.
Flickr Foundation will be a nonprofit dedicated to preserving billions of culturally and historically essential photos so that future generations can look back on them and gain insight into what life was like.
The new organization is developing four different preservations programs, including Flickr Commons, content mobility, creative archiving, and fostering new curators. These sectors will care for the integrity of these historic images.
You might have noticed that Flickr Commons has been mentioned. For those unaware, Flickr Commons is a previously established portion of the company set up by George Oates, who created this program with the United States Library of Congress to help cultural institutions share their photography collections worldwide.
This will serve as the basis for Flickr Foundation, which expands on the already established work set up by Oates. In the end, this will culminate in a 100-year plan that seeks to provide those living a century after us with the access to pictures from all eras of life.