Xavier Di Petta and Chris Wild arrived at their vocation¹ — as digital curators of historical pictures — in very different ways. For 18-year-old Mr Di Petta it was an outcome of a hobby that he fitted in around his schoolwork; for Mr Wild, 44, the route was more traditional. He had worked for a number of years in museum and photographic archives.

泽维尔•迪佩塔(Xavier Di Petta)和克里斯•怀尔德(Chris Wild)以不同的方式找到了自己的事业——历史图片数字策展人。对于18岁的迪佩塔来说，这是他课余爱好的成果。而对于44岁的怀尔德来说，他的路线比较传统，他曾在博物馆和照片档案机构工作多年。

Curator used to be a rather rarefied tag, applied² to specialists who preserved artefacts and organised collections. In the digital era it has become a catch-all term for anyone who aggregates³ and selects content. Anyone creating an iTunes playlist could be called a curator. This democratisation suits Mr Wild, who insists cultural institutions should not be precious. “We are all casual curators when choosing and showing things to other people. It’s a gradient.”

策展人曾带着高高在上的标签，专属那些保管文物和整理藏品的专家。在数字化时代，策展人成了对收集和筛选内容的人的一个笼统的称谓。人们只要创建一个iTunes播放列表，就可以被称为策展人。这种大众化很对怀尔德的胃口，他坚持文化机构不应故作清高。“当我们挑选事物向他人展示时，大家全是某种意义上的策展人。这是种变化。”

Originally from Shepparton, Australia, Mr Di Petta’s path into archive curation was accidental. In July 2013, aged⁴ 16, he set up a Twitter account with his friend Kyle Cameron, a student from Hawaii — the pair had met through a YouTube partnership⁵ programme. The two had already created @EarthPix which posts pictures from towns and forests around the world, and wanted to see how historical pictures would fare. The first post was the Depression-era photo of New York construction workers lunching on a crossbeam hundreds of feet in the air. “I was surprised by how many times it was retweeted,” says Mr Di Petta. Two years later the @HistoryInPics account has over 2m followers⁶ and legions of copycats. Mr Di Petta shrugs⁷ off the competition. “It’s the way it is. I don’t care.”

迪佩塔来自澳大利亚的谢帕顿，他走上档案策展这条职业道路是个意外。2013年7月，16岁的迪佩塔与朋友凯尔•卡梅伦(Kyle Cameron)建立了一个Twitter账户。卡梅伦来自夏威夷，他们通过YouTube伙伴计划相识。两人此前已创建了@EarthPix账号，用来发布全球各地的城镇和森林照片，于是他们想看看贴历史图片是什么效果。他们发的第一张历史图片是大萧条时期，纽约建筑工人坐在数百英尺高的一根横梁上吃午餐。迪佩塔说：“这张照片的转发次数让我惊讶。”两年后，@HistoryInPics账号拥有了200万名关注者，还引来大批模仿者。迪佩塔耸肩表示不介意竞争。“现实就是这样，我不在乎。”

Ambitions to study accounting⁸ fell by the wayside. He moved to Los Angeles to become strategic partnerships⁹ manager for AllDay.com, which oversees¹⁰ @HistoryInPics and creates editorial content, contextualising historical pictures.

迪佩塔半路放弃了会计学的学业，搬到洛杉矶成为AllDay.com网站战略合伙经理。AllDay.com负责管理@HistoryInPics账号和创建编辑内容，对历史图片进行情境化处理。

Youthful naivety¹¹ has had its drawbacks. As a 16-year-old he had no understanding of copyright law. When news stories accused him of reaping profits from the Twitter account’s affiliate¹² website while not paying to use the pictures, he faced a storm of hostility¹³. Subsequently, he says, they have formed partnerships with agencies. “I’ve matured,” he reflects.

年少天真有其缺点。16岁的迪佩塔对版权法一无所知。当新闻报道指责他从其Twitter账号的联盟网站攫取利润，却不支付图片使用费时，他遭遇了强烈的敌意。他说后来他们与代理公司形成合作关系。他反省道：“我已经成熟了。”

Laurence Kaye, a partner at Shoosmiths law firm, specialising in publishing and digital media, says that while the law states that copyright must be cleared before photographs are published, in practice it can prove unwieldy. Last year, Getty Images, the photo agency acquired for $3.3bn by Carlyle in 2012, decided¹⁴ to make more than 30m images available to share for free on blogs and social media. In part this was because it felt unable to stop people using its pictures without permission. The move upset photographers who saw it devaluing their work.

Shoosmiths律师事务所合伙人劳伦斯•凯(Laurence Kaye)专门从事出版和数字媒体方面业务。他说，虽然法律规定照片在发布前必须确定著作权，但现实中却难以实践。去年，华盖创意图片库（Getty Images，2012年被凯雷(Carlyle)斥资33亿美元收购）决定在博客和社交媒体上免费分享3000多万张图片。华盖作出这一决定，部分原因在于该公司觉得无法阻止人们未经允许使用其图片。此举令摄影师感到沮丧，他们认为自己的工作遭到了贬低。

For the Oxford-based Mr Wild it was his “lowly role” at the UK’s Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (later incorporated into the Arts Council) that convinced him of the need for archivists to find a wider audience. He became fascinated by making the equivalent of “hit records” for historical photos. Driving this was a childhood ambition to time travel.

常驻牛津的怀尔德认为，在英国博物馆、图书馆和档案馆委员会（后并入英国艺术委员会），自己是一个“卑微的角色”，这令他确信档案管理员有必要找到更广泛的受众。他开始痴迷于为历史照片制作类似“畅销唱片”的照片集。怀尔德的动力来自于童年时代关于时空穿梭的愿望。

In lieu of a time machine, he set up Retronaut, a website, as well as social media accounts. These promoted historical pictures that encouraged the audience to put themselves in the shoes of the photographs’ subjects. “I was saying ‘look if you want to go back in time, you can’t build a time machine but look at these pictures because they’ll have a similar effect’.” High resolution or colour pictures help this ambition.

结果他没有造出时光机，而是建立了Retronaut网站以及若干社交媒体账户。这些平台推出历史图片，鼓励观众将自己代入到照片的情境中。“我当时这样讲，‘看，如果你想回到过去，你不能造时光机，但可以看看这些照片，因为它们会具有同样的效果’。”高分辨率或彩色照片帮助人们实现了这一愿望。

At first — in 2010 — his audience was just himself and his mother. A colour picture of Piccadilly Circus in central London dating back to 1949 was one of the first to go viral, thereby¹⁵ raising the site’s profile and building its audience. Over the past five years he has received money from seed investors¹⁶, including Steve Pankhurst, the co-founder of Friends Reunited. “I’ve been through times where things have looked very bleak¹⁷ for Retronaut and I’ve wondered if it’s going to survive,” he says.

在2010年的起步阶段，怀尔德的观众只有他自己和他母亲。一张时间可追溯至1949年的伦敦市中心皮卡迪利广场的彩色照片，成了首批火爆的图片之一，从而提高了网站的名声，并壮大了受众。过去5年怀尔德获得了种子投资者的资金，投资者包括Friends Reunited的联合创始人史蒂夫•潘克赫斯特(Steve Pankhurst)。怀尔德说：“我多次经历Retronaut的惨淡时刻，我曾怀疑它是否能撑下去。”

However, last year Mashable, the technology news site, announced a licensing¹⁸ deal with Retronaut. Mr Wild sees Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com statistics blog as a model — after it was licensed¹⁹ to the New York Times, it was bought by ESPN, the sports channel. Mashable’s arrangement with picture agencies means that Mr Wild has access to a wealth of material.

然而就在去年，Mashable科技新闻网站宣布与Retronaut达成一项授权协议。怀尔德视纳特•西尔弗(Nate Silver)的FiveThirtyEight.com数据统计博客为榜样，该网站在授权给《纽约时报》(New York Times)后，被体育频道ESPN收购。Mashable与几家图片机构拥有协议，这意味着怀尔德能获取丰富的素材。

Mr Wild believes he knows what makes a photo a “hit”: its ability to surprise. He calls up a series of pictures of Edwardian women shopping, which evokes²⁰ the modern street style blogger, The Sartorialist. “Historic pictures most engage us when they don’t fit with what we think the past should be . . . that’s what creates a viral hit.”

怀尔德相信自己知道是什么使一张照片火爆——要能让人大吃一惊。他集合了一系列爱德华七世时代女性购物的照片，它们令人想到现代街拍博客Sartorialist上的照片。“最吸引我们的历史照片，是那些与我们想象中过去的样子大相径庭的照片……这样的照片会火爆。”

Nostalgia²¹ is also potent²². A popular series was shopping malls in the 1980s. One of the shoppers in the picture emailed Mr Wild in shock. “I thought I looked absolutely fantastic,” he wrote, “and I look terrible but what’s weird²³ is now I also think I look great.”

怀旧也是一股强大的力量。上世纪80年代购物中心的一系列照片受到很大欢迎。照片里的一位购物者惊讶地给怀尔德发电子邮件，他写道：“我那时觉得自己超级帅。其实我长得不怎么样，但奇怪的是我现在依然觉得自己很帅。”

For @HistoryInPics the photos with the most traffic have often proved to be celebrities²⁴ in unusual settings, such as David Bowie’s 1976 police mugshot.

@HistoryInPics上访问量最高的照片通常是名人在不寻常状态下拍摄的，比如大卫•鲍伊(David Bowie) 1976年的犯人照。

Fakes are an occupational hazard. Mr Wild says he sees very few deliberately²⁵ falsified photos. “Usually the fake element is that the image has been mislabelled.” Researching a picture’s provenance²⁶ is crucial, says Mr Di Petta, but he admits to accidentally posting fakes.

伪造照片是这个行业中的一种职业病。怀尔德说他很少见到刻意伪造的照片。“常见的伪造因素是将图片错误分类。”迪佩塔说，研究照片出处是关键，但他承认一不小心也会贴出伪造照片。

Both Mr Di Petta and Mr Wild have deployed²⁷ their digital skills to promote archive centres and museums. The US National Women’s History Museum appointed Mr Di Petta to its advisory²⁸ council. “I’ll admit we were quite surprised [to be approached by Mr Di Petta] because he was a young man and the overwhelming majority of our supporters are older women,” observes Marjahn Golban, the museum’s external affairs director (feminist Gloria Steinem, for example, sits on the

迪佩塔和怀尔德利用他们的数字技能，促进了档案中心和博物馆的发展。美国女性历史博物馆(National Women’s History Museum)委任迪佩塔为咨询委员会成员。该博物馆外部事务负责人玛尔雅恩•戈尔瓦(Marjahn Golban)说：“我承认，（当迪佩塔找到我们时）我们感到非常惊讶，因为他是位年轻的男性，而我们绝大多数支持者为年长的女性。”比如在咨询委员会与18岁的迪佩塔共事的，就有女权主义者格洛丽亚•斯泰纳姆(Gloria Steinem)。同时，怀尔德曾受邀在档案中心策划展览，还在Retronaut上展出大量藏品照片。

advisory council alongside the 18-year-old). Meanwhile, Mr Wild has guest curated exhibitions at archive centres and hosted collections’ photos on Retronaut.

不过怀尔德认为，对于Retronaut的成长，一位女性功不可没——阿曼达•尤伦(Amanda Uren)，“她是我遇到过的最好的数字策展人”。她在哪儿接受的培训呢？她在乐购(Tesco)超市担任销售助理直到2013年。