According to the About page: Picture Australia is an internet-based service that allows you to search many significant online pictorial collections at the same time. When you search on Picture Australia, thumbnail images are retrieved from participating institutions on the fly and inserted into the search results.

Participating institutions include libraries, universities, museums and the Australian War Memorial.

Clicking on an image takes you to the institution’s website for details about the picture.

This is a fantastic use of technology, providing broad public access to cultural and historical treasures. It’s a wonderful tool for researchers, saving countless hours and cost.

It’s all under the umbrella of the National Library of Australia as part of the Trove, which is an online collection of digitised archives including newspapers, journals, photographs, diaries and audio.

I’ve done image searches in Trove before, but the Picture Australia page is cleaner and more visually appealing.

Something I hadn’t seen before was the ability for individuals to contribute photographs.

It’s as simple as joining the Picture Australia Flickr group for People, Places and Events.

I added a few photos and will be interested to see if they become part of the collection.

All of this makes it much easier for historians and genealogists to share and find information.

Update: The pictures I uploaded to Flickr are now part of the Picture Australia archive.

This website publishes press photographs of angry people.

As the author says: “I feel sorry for local news photographers. They are hugely skilled and poorly paid, and sent out to photograph miserable people pointing at dog turds. Here, we celebrate their work.”

Until discovering this site I wasn’t fully aware how many angry people there are.

I verified the anger by searching Google News for “angry residents”. Here are some recent examples:

Residents fear trees chopped ‘willy-nilly’

East Auckland residents (from left) Alison Dyson, Gary Muller, Bill Dalziel and Andrea Robinson are angry trees on Marine Parade in Howick have been felled. Photo: Natalie Slade.

The sight of a pile of tree limbs chopped to improve sea views has angered users of a popular coastal walkway in one of east Auckland’s premium streets.

“A lot of people are sick to the guts about what is happening,” said Alison Dyson, who lives near the scene of the clearing work on a subdivision overlooking Mellons Bay, Howick.

• Full story in the New Zealand Herald.

Hearing draws angry crowd of citizens, officials

Hundreds of concerned citizens turned out at Salem City Hall Annex on Jan. 25 to weigh in on the cuts to bus, train and ferry services and fare hikes proposed by the MBTA.

Inside two overcrowded rooms that spilled out into the hallway, outraged residents, officials and politicians asserted their opinions, insisting that the changes would be detrimental to the quality of life on the North Shore.

• Full story in the Cape Ann Beacon.

Fury over noisy road upgrades

Angry North Sapphire residents have left Roads and Maritime Services in no doubt about their feelings over the amount of noise road works on the Sapphire to Woolgoolga upgrade are creating.

Residents are fed up with the noise from compression brakes and heavy machinery and have asked for noise barriers to be installed.

• Full story in the Coffs Coast Advocate.

Bad case of gas riles Darebin residents

Raleigh Street residents say Darebin Council wasted ratepayers’ money landscaping their nature strips only a few weeks before a gas company ripped them up.

“Very annoyed” resident Enver Sakiri said he had had to put up with council machinery breaking concrete and digging holes in his nature strip late last year only to have to endure it again a few weeks later when gas company APA Group replaced mains.

• Full story in the Preston Leader.

Angry Mombasa clerics demand repair of roads

The Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya yesterday stormed the Kenya Rural Roads Authority and Kenya Urban Roads Authority offices in Mombasa to demand answers about the pathetic condition of roads.

Council officials led by nominated MP Sheikh Mohamed Dhor caught managers of the two authorities by surprise.

• Full story in The Star.

Angry parents demand action over dangerous crossing

Angry parents say they are still waiting for action two months after calling on the council to introduce parking restrictions on a busy road.

More than 600 people signed a petition demanding action be taken on a section of Inmans Row at the junction with Monkhams Lane in Woodford Green, where children are encouraged to cross by painted footprints on the pavement.

• Full story in The Guardian.

Residents join bid to save lollipop patrols

Angry residents and ward councillors have backed calls to save city school crossing patrols.

The patrols are under threat as part of Peterborough City Council budget proposals.

• Full story in Peterborough Today.

Comment

All these stories are from the past few days and I could have easily picked another 20 or more.

It shows that anger is universal, although the Brits seem to get more angry more quickly than the rest of us.

In some parts of the world anger is saved for life-and-death issues, whereas in England outrage is sparked if the local council removes a parking space.

All good fodder for local newspapers and now the internet.

It mentions The Independent in England, the Daily Mirror and regional UK publisher Archant.

“Newspaper photographers are in retreat. Staff jobs are vanishing as publishers look for new ways to cut costs. National papers have gradually been reducing numbers in recent years. Many titles have only a handful.”

The same applies in regional Australia, although I’m not sure about metropolitan newspapers. In fact, The Advertiser in Adelaide seems to have a healthy complement of staff photographers, but I wonder how long that will be the case.

When I started with country newspapers in 1986, most had staff photographers.

I worked with the talented Eric Yeates at the Bairnsdale Advertiser. He taught me how to use a camera and even let me into the dark room to learn the mystery of how pictures were developed. The unique smell remains a clear memory.

Eric had a great eye for detail. He taught this to me, along with the eternal message: “fill the frame”. He also advised some parameters for manual photography using flash, which I never forgot.

The first significant threat to the photographic craft was one-hour processing. It became possible to get film developed offsite, and easier to use contributed pictures.

Then came digital photography and finally the insatiable internet.

When I worked at the Gippsland Times in 1988 there were two staff photographers. As far as I know, there are none today.

The daily Kalgoorlie Miner had two full-time staff photographers and a couple of casuals when I was there. I hope that’s still the case.

In regional South Australia however, the only regional newspaper with a staff photographer that I’m aware of, is the Mount Barker Courier. And that knowledge is several years old.

I can understand that publishers want to save money. Most journalists can take adequate pictures, some better than others. Readers can and do contribute pictures, especially of junior sport and social events.

But a good photographer is priceless. They know how to compose a front page picture, how to engage subjects and how to create. Excellent photos sell newspapers.

I always valued good photographers and I think the newspaper industry is poorer without them.

The photographers themselves are now taking wedding pictures.

As one commenter on The Guardian post remarked:

“Anyone can snap a photo of a burning bus. Not everyone can consistently make something boring look visually compelling. That’s the job of a professional photojournalist. They have the ability to make storytelling images all the time no matter the situation, especially when the image isn’t staring you in the face.”

While the loss in quality may not be immediately noticeable, it will be over time and readers will feel that newspapers offer them less value.

• For some light relief, visit this site for Angry people in local newspapers.

This was the best effort, but most of the other 90 or so weren’t worth keeping.

Michael is playing for Glenelg in the Adelaide inter-association tournament, under 15 division.

I used to like playing along the creek’s banks when I was a kid. It was pretty rough in those days (70s) with lots of blackberries, but in the town at least it has been pretty well cleaned up today.

The creek used to flood significantly as well, but mitigation works have eased the threat.

This week, the water had largely subsided by the time I visited again.

This is the Mile End Common.

The top photo is the office complex where I spend about half my work time. I’ve heard some staff call it “The Black Stump”.

As Wikipedia explains: “The Australian expression ‘black stump’ is the name for an imaginary point beyond which the country is considered remote or uncivilised, an abstract marker of the limits of established settlement.”

In the case of this building I think the expression just refers to the color.

The second picture is a view of Grenfell Street looking towards the west.

The bottom photo shows Maggie sitting on a pig’s back in Rundle Mall. The pig sculptures are a popular feature in the shopping precinct.

Well, they can actually be quite handy for editing pictures grabbed from the web.

I’ve been using Pixlr for just that purpose lately and I’ve been most impressed.

Pixlr is a flash-based editor with all the tools necessary for manipulating web images. Pictures can be cropped and resized, touched up with a brush, adjusted for color, curves, hue and saturation, etc.

It’s fast and easy to use.

There are extensions for Firefox and Chrome that make capturing a screenshot, cropping and resizing it a breeze.

The camera is small, light and compact. It has a wide-angle lens with a 10x optical zoom.

Although I enjoy using my Nikon D60 at home and for sports, the Lumix is my companion for travelling and hiking.

Today I came across a new competition called LUMIX Life Focus on Australia.

It’s a chance “to be part of a unique book concept where professionals and amateurs alike will be published side by side in a stunning publication showcasing the heart of Australia”.

People are encouraged to submit entries taken with Lumix cameras of Australian scenes.

Windmills for power generation near Mount Gambier in South Australia.

I’ve taken many pictures of landscapes and buildings using my Lumix, including this one of the Canunda wind farm.

I’ve entered three photos so far and will put some more into the competition before it closes on June 30.

Entrants will be in the running to win one of three Lumix DMC-GF1 cameras.

That would be nice!

See Panasonic Australia on Facebook for more details.

• Note: This is a sponsored post.