BBC In Pictures The BBC has expanded its mandate in the era of web communications. It has eagerly sought to include the images and viewpoints of people the world over. The pick of amateur works rub shoulders with professional photography. In Pictures is a leading example of the democratization of media. Stunning color photography and award-winning web design perfect the mix. 

Chandra X-Ray Observatory This site features some truly mind-expanding images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, a telescope specially designed to detect X-ray emission from very hot regions of the universe such as exploded stars, clusters of galaxies, and matter around black holes. Chandra’s busy website is bursting at the seams with all kinds fantastic deep-space images, facts, science, history, educational games, audio and video clips, and classroom-ready activities. To spend time on this site is to become re-acquainted with one’s sense of wonder - seriously. 

Earth at Night One of PhotoWings' favorites, this image of Earth at Night was created with data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS). The brightest areas of the Earth are the most urbanized, but not necessarily the most populated. Cities tend to grow along coastlines and transportation networks. Even more than 100 years after the invention of the electric light, some regions remain thinly populated and unlit. Antarctica is entirely dark. The interior jungles of Africa and South America and the deserts of Africa, Arabia, Australia, Mongolia, and USA are mostly dark, along with the boreal forests of Canada and Russia, and the great mountains of the Himalaya. 

Great Images in NASA (GRIN) As opposed to a general archive, GRIN is a collection of over a thousand purposefully chosen images of significant historical interest.Scanned at high-resolution in multiple sizes, this collection is intended for the media, publishers, and public looking for high-quality photographs. 

Hubble Site The mechanical eye of the Hubble Space Telescope has captured some of the most compelling and poetic images of our time. Polished and dynamic, the Hubble Site is information central for those fascinated with the progress of this voyage. There is news from space, descriptions of discoveries, explanations of science, and hundreds of beautiful high resolution images of planets, stars nebulae and more. These remarkable images are all ready to download as wall paper or as prints. It is hard not to get caught up in the excitement that this project generates; photographing space means expanding the limits of our known world. 

Legacy Project - The Greatest Photograph Somewhere in Orange County, California, there is an abandoned military airfield that is being transformed into a huge metropolitan park, a process that has attracted the attention of group of artists who have taken the long view in documenting this process. The Legacy Project is the work of six “photographic artists,” who are committed to tracing the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station’s transition from barricaded military zone to public park. Although photography is their principal medium, video and oral histories will help to frame the subject. Size is a recurring theme in this project: what will be one of America’s biggest urban parks will be transformed over the length of a decade and captured on the world’s largest photograph. In a clever and compelling re-use of an abandoned airplane hangar, a building becomes a camera that captures its environment in a three stories high and eleven stories long panorama. This is just one of the Legacy Project’s means of approaching its subject, the rest will be revealed over time on this sharp looking site. An unusual and fascinating project, in essence and in scope. 

lluminado Vidas, Fotografia Moçambicana 1950-2001 This site documents a traveling exhibition that offered up something rare to western eyes: a view of the rich tradition of reportage photography in Mozambique. This project was created to help Mozambique, and indeed the world, re-discover this nation’s important photographic tradition. Led by the country’s most renowned veteran photographer, Ricardo Rangel, the exhibition showcased the next generation of great documentarians continuing in the Mozambican line. The website features the photographer’s biographies and personal statements – fascinating - as well as a sampling of images from the exhibition. 

NASA Picture of the Day Archive Rather than the joyous entanglement of endless archives, one is served up with a single image per day. Laid bare is the astonishing evolution of astronomical imaging. The sophistication of pictures today compared to 1995 when the initiative began is plain for all to see. What will opti-technological advances reveal in the future? 

NASA-NSSDC Photo Gallery NASA’s photo gallery contains images that have profoundly changed the world - or at least our perception of it. The somewhat awkward and low-tech presentation can do nothing to diminish the power of first pictures of the earth from the moon, or the surreal images of Jupiter taken by the Voyager satellite. NASA’s collection of space photography serves to remind us of the photography’s power to reveal what had only been imagined before. 

Photogravure This well-organized site offers a great overview of the history of the age-old photogravure process, in which metal plate engravings were used to create lush, artful photographs. The site also includes extensive information on conservation and collecting, including historical articles, texts by experts, a glossary, a blog, and links. After getting a primer on the medium, visitors can peruse examples of photogravure by dozens of photographers including Édouard Baldus, Peter Henry Emerson, Paul Strand, and William Henry Fox Talbot.  

Smithsonian Images The Smithsonian’s Photographic Services offer a variety of uncommon pictures from the institution’s collections. From the volcanoes of Mexico to the inauguration ball gowns worn by first ladies, the Smithsonian’s vast collections are sampled here. 

Time Magazine Photo Essays One of the few remaining publications that showcase traditional photojournalism and reportage, Time Magazine’s site offers a fascinating compendium of photo essays and current news pictures. To flip through Time’s numerous slide shows, featuring a truly eclectic range of topics, is to remember how vital professional photojournalism is to the way we understand the world and the stories we tell about ourselves.