This is a wonderful talk by David Carson, author/designer of The End of Print, The Book of Probes, and Trek.  With ample humor, he offers his take on his work in graphic design, the role of visual images and print, and images found in media and public places.

It reminded me of our road trip to Upper Peninsula during the summer of 2007.  I was in the process of training for the Marine Corps Marathon, and since I love trail running, I thought it would be a good idea to sign up for the inaugural 25K Tahqua Trail Run.  One August day, we gamely packed up our car, and spent eight hours driving from our home in Madison to Paradise, Michigan.

Despite the fact that it was the peak of summer, it was only 34 degrees when the race started.  The run itself was absolutely gorgeous, if technically challenging (it gets a bit hard to hopscotch over tree roots and climb steep hills after you’ve been running for hours!)  And through a sheer fluke, I ended up winning my age category (lest you think I’m actually good at this, let me note that there were only two other women in my age bracket).

The run finished here, at the Upper Tahquamenon Falls (the second largest waterfall east of the Mississippi):

But anyway, back to found images.  My husband and I are both avid photographers, and we love capturing images of what we encounter on our travels.  So, inspired by David Carson’s talk, here’s what we discovered in the U.P.

We decided that the hip hop horses would be friends with the rhymenocerous and the hiphopopotamus.

Love it.  CoolFlick, that is.  It combines the search power of Flickr with the stunning 3D experience of Cooliris.  To experience Cooliris yourself, I would recommend checking out the Wall Street Journal’s 2008 Year in Pictures.  Now imagine that, linked to the millions of photos uploaded from around the world onto Flickr.

It’s fascinating how social media is facilitating the exchange of visual images… I can’t help but wonder if users are prompted to engage in perspective taking and critical thinking as they share images with an audience (known and unknown, local and distal).

But back to CoolFlick.  One of the drawbacks, as ReadWriteWeb points out, there’s no advanced search – and thus, no way to discern if photos are licensed under Creative Commons.  Ever conscious of copyright issues, I typically find photos for my blog or PowerPoints at stock.xchng or use my own photography.

The photo used in this post, for instance, was taken in Oaxaca, Mexico, last June.  My son Cole and I spent two weeks there at a wonderful language school… and we were inadvertently there on the two year anniversary of protests that turned violent.  I tried to see it through his 8 year old eyes: striking teachers camped for weeks in the Zocalo, banners with the images of Lenin and Marx, and ever-present graffiti.  The images may only stay up for a day or two, before fresh white paint covered them up.

In Oaxaca, the graffiti provided a way for me to (try to) explain complex issues to my son.  Banksy-style images functioned as political expression and public art.  Is it any wonder that in times of political upheaval (even now, here in the States, with our new president) people turn to visual means to express themselves?  Tools like CoolFlick are a way to share their work – and to reach across time, space, and difference.