How does one search for "ordinary" photos of countryside?    For
example, I would like to look at some photos of the countryside in
upstate New York.   With perhaps millions of personal websites out
there, it seems that there must be a lot of pictures posted on the web
that people have taken which show the areas surrounding the places
they live.   When I try to search for such photos all I seem to come
up with are professionally taken photos which tend to be of the sort
"wonders of the world" trying to show off a particular place.   Those
are not the kind of photos I'm looking for.   Rather, I'm looking for
the amateur shot of a small town, view of a farmer's field, the quiet
neighborhood, more of what I call "ordinary" photos.   What are some
good ways to go about searching for these kinds of photos?

Seattle,

I'm going to give you a suggestion here which should be able to get
you what you're after.  But if it turns out I'm going over familiar
territory, just let me know -- by posting a Request for Clarification
-- and I'm sure we can come up with another strategy.

Google Images is a collection of nothing but...images!  And in my
experience, it tends to favor the "snapshot" over the professional
photograph.

You can go directly to Google Images at:

images.google.com

I ran a simple search on just two terms:  upstate NY

and got several thousand results that you can see here:

http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&q=upstate+ny+

You'll note that on the first page, 16 of the 20 images are photos,
and there isn't really a professional quality photo in the bunch --
these are mostly amateur photos of slices of life from upstate New
York.

You can refine your search a bit by adding a term of interest like: 

upstate NY farm

upstate NY house

upstate NY mountain


I'm sure you get the idea.


I hope this does the trick, but like I said, just let me know if
something else is needed, and I'll get to work on it for you.

Perfect!!  Thank you!!