President Obama Photos on Flickr

Image from Whitehouse Flickr Stream

In his continuing efforts to bring the US Government further into the world of the modern web, Obama’s Whitehouse has embraced Flickr. You can now see a wonderful selection of Presidential moments on the Whitehouse Flickr Stream. Ranging from meetings with world leaders, through happy moments with his family to quiet moments along with his football. Obviously all the photos are carefully chosen to portray him in the best light, but this is an unprecedented, intimate look at the man of the moment.

As an aside, these photos have raised an interesting question: why are they tagged as creative commons on Flickr rather than the Public Domain licence that they should be under? The short answer is that Flickr does not offer a Public Domain setting for their licencing, which means that under the terms of the CC licence each of the photos in this stream can be used as you want but must be attributed - rather than the open use that would be allowed by Public Domain. Either way, they are still wonderful images and I’m very glad we have such easy access to them.