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You can now download nearly 70,000 hi-res early 20th century color photos from a French museum

Old photos can reveal a lot about the past, and I’m always excited to take a peek at the world that existed long before I was born. The Albert Kahn Museum in France has just made it easier: it has made nearly 70,000 hi-res, color photos available to the public.

The images are, in my opinion, truly remarkable and interesting. They show people, buildings, and events from the early 20th century captured all over the world, giving us an insight into many different cultures. They’re all in public domain, so the museum made them completely free to download and use.

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The ten best photo spots in Paris

Look up any list of the most photographed cities in the world, and Paris is in the top 3, usually along with New York and London. And for good reason: every street is a work of art.

Even if the Eiffel Tower has been photographed millions of times, we all bring something new to it. And besides, how can you tell the story of visiting Paris without seeing the Tower? It is the symbol of the city, even more than Big Ben of London or the Chrysler building of New York.

The Tower looms over the entire city, but where to go to get the best shot?

We just spent two weeks in Paris, producing the latest episode of PhotowalksTV, and we have a few ideas about photographing the Tower and other Paris icons.

Let’s break it down, with ten tips for Paris’s best.

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France orders Clearview AI to delete the selfie data it gathered

Clearview AI came under fire for scraping billions of selfies off the Internet to sell facial recognition services to law enforcement. France’s privacy watchdog said that the company has breached Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and France has now ordered Clearview AI to delete its database.

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A street in Paris wants to ban Instagrammers so the residents can get some peace

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Rue Crémieux is a picturesque street in Paris, with lovely colorful facades and old houses. And just like Notting Hill: it has become swarmed by Instagrammers and the residents have had enough. They want their peace back, so they are asking the city government to ban photo and video shoots on weekends and evenings.

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Billboard shoots photos of terrified jaywalkers after scaring them with tire screeching sounds

Billboards are often ignored. You can walk past a hundred of them in a day and not remember what a single one of them was promoting. We just kind of tune them out. This one in France, however, is a little difficult to ignore. Especially if you’re crossing the street when you’re not paying attention.

The billboard has sensors which monitor for people crossing the road when they’re not supposed to. It plays a loud tire screeching sound making the hapless wanderer believe their life is in danger. It then snaps a photo of the terrified pedestrian and puts it on the billboard. The goal is to raise awareness for the dangers of being a careless pedestrian.

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This is your last chance to shoot the Eiffel tower without a hideous wall

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It seems another controversial wall may be getting ready to be built. In France, this time. In a $20 million project, the French government plans to construct an 8.2ft high bulletproof glass wall around the base of the Eiffel Tower. The primary goal is to increase protection against potential terrorism, but it’s been harshly criticised by locals as “tasteless” and an “eyesore”.

The wall is set to be completed by autumn, and critics have suggested it will undermine the French capital’s tourism industry even further. Paris tourism has already suffered as the result of a series of terrorist attacks that have killed more than 230 people in the last few years. Despite this, the tower still draws around 6 million visitors per year.

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France: Sharing photos of your kids could land you in jail

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If you are a French parent who likes posting their kid’s photos all over the internet, we have same bad news for you.

The Telegraph noticed that the privacy laws in France are pretty strict. How strict, you ask? Strict to the point that your offspring can sue you for infringing on their right to privacy if you posted photos of them when they were younger. And this is not a small offence either; penalties could ramp up to €45,000 plus a year in prison (where no photo sharing is allowed at all!). The judge would have to be convinced that you published some of your kids without their consent, but, who decides what’s private? And show me the parent that asks for permission before every my-kid-is-making-soap-bubbles-and-he-is-so-cute photo upload, and I will show you one kid who’s gonna spend years in therapy.

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The History and Science of Lenses; Or Why Lenses Aren’t Named Anymore

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Despite being as important as the camera body, lenses seem to get less attention.

Sure some extremely large or expensive lenses are mentioned every once in a while, but looking back how much do you really know about lenses? Not that much I assume, but you probably know who invented the first camera and at least a few milestones in its history.

Here to level the playing field is John Hess from Filmmaker IQ, with a 25-minute long video covering the history of the lens from its early beginning as a fire starting tool to the modern designs common today.

The video is a bit scientific at times, but it includes a bunch of interesting tidbits about lens and their development.

Watch the video below to learn when and how the anti-reflective coating was developed, when fast prime lenses came to be and why Japanese companies dominate the photographic market.

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Photojournalist Steve McCurry Recalls ‘Chaos’ at the Stade de France During Paris Attacks

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Famed photojournalist Steve McCurry was one of 80,000 people inside the Stade de France watching a France-Germany friendly on Friday, November 13th, 2015. Twenty minutes into the match, three suicide bombers detonated explosive vests just outside of the national stadium as one part of a string of ‘highly coordinated’ terrorist attacks across Paris, France.

McCurry, most known for his 1984 National Geographic portrait ‘Afghan Girl,’ spoke to CBS News on Saturday, recounting the ‘mayhem and chaos’ that unfolded.[Read More…]

These Sucked Faces Demonstrate How Smartphones Alienate Us From Ourselves And Our Surroundings

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In this rather unusual photo set, French photographer Antoine Geiger criticizes our obsession and addiction to modern technology and smartphones by creating faces being sucked into screens.

Using candid photos captured in the Louvre and elsewhere in Paris, Antoine says this project places the screen “as an object of “mass subculture”, alienating the relation to our own body, and more generally to the physical world”.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, these photos make an interesting point.

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