How to search (and find!) through the LIFE photos archives?

[airmanual]

Good day,

Seen, mostly here on WIX, hundreds if not thousands of captivating photos from the online LIFE photo archives. But everytime time i try a direct search, i fail miserably!!

Example : Mark Allen posted recently plenty of excellent B-25 shots. But when i try to search direclty the online archives, it gives absolutely no result!!

Is there any trick or any special way to get result?

Any advise most appreciated.

Thanks,

Laurent

[Mark Allen M]

Ah yes! Laurent, the wonderful world of the Google LIFE archives. Very unorganized to say the least. I can tell you the only real way to get results with the archives is by going back to very early grade school. lol, what I mean by this is ...

Example: Type in the search box such words as Plane, Airplane, Base, Navy, Boat, Army, Jeep, Ship, 1945, the photographers name works very well too ... keep it simple ... Once hundreds of images show up, find an image you see interesting and click on it. To the right of the image you pick will be many additional photos to pick, keep scrolling through the photos and you will find wonders. Keep scrolling for a while as there are many to find, just don't think you have seen them all in the group if some come up that look like you have already seen them. Trust me there are sometimes hundreds per set. Great stuff to search out if you have the time and patience.

Hope this helps, if you still have problems contact me anytime and I'll walk you through it. Have fun with your searches.
Also if there is a particular something you are looking for I'd be happy to help you search. BTW I've pretty much found everything in the archives that we warbird lovers love to see. The archives are not as 'infinite' as I once thought they were.

Future LIFE image Threads for those interested (I'll post over time not to clutter up WIX too much ... ha

P-61's
P-51's
San Francisco during WW2
NAS Oceana
NAS Glenview
Several great USAAF training bases

Here's one of the B-25 series. A good one
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/8e ... 485a5.html

Mark

[Chris Brame]

NAS Glenview

YES!!!

And you're not kidding about how screwy the Life photo search can be. For example, I typed in "scrap" and this was one of the items:



It's showing new plastic eye and, um... chest protection...

[PropsRule]

I always bear in mind that the people cataloging the LIFE photos are faced with thousands of photos from almost infinitely varied subjects. They can't be experts on everything they see. So, if I was looking for a photo of a Lockheed P-80 (just off the top of my head), I might search for "Jet 1945", "First Air Force jet", or even, "Lulu Belle" (you never know!). A successful search for "Lockheed P-80" would depend on the person cataloging the photo to know what a P-80 is.

As a tip for anyone interested, a search of simply the word "Boeing" pulls up some fantastic colour pre-war photos, including a couple of a Curtiss A-18 Shrike. And to the point of the original poster's question, "Curtiss A-18 Shrike" appears nowhere in the captions.

EDIT: "Jet 1946" turns up some P-80s, P-80s at the Cleveland Air Races, and a Consolidated Privateer doing a JATO take off. The caption for that one should have been, "WoooooooHOOOOOOOOOO!!"

[airmanual]

thanks for the advices. Much appreciated.

So, no miracle easy search formula!!

In fact, i'm especially looking for these:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=47122&p=473060#p473060

so, if anybody has or can help

Laurent

[ALOHADAVE]

Mark,
Please list which photo threads have you completed and posted?
In case I missed some.
I look forward to your future threads
Thanks