I've always enjoyed going on vacation and then showing my photos to other people. I'm not sure if the people I showed the photos to enjoyed it as much as me, but that's okay. I also love to travel, and if you are in a certain area, a lot of buildings and scenary can start to look the same in the pictures. This presents a problem when later on trying to go through and label the photos and remember where they came from. I have many pictures from my trips to France and Italy where I'm at a vineyard, but I don't remember where. If had geotagged my photos when I uploaded them (although, these trips were more when digital cameras were just coming out), I wouldn't have this problem.
This brings me to a story. When I was in France in March 2004, I spent a day in the city of Arles and went to a little fortified town on some beautiful cliffs called Les Baux. Les Baux might have been one of the most beautiful spots I've ever been in in my life. I took many pictures and even sprung the 3 euros for access to the crumbling castle that offered even better views. I was so excited about these pictures. However, my camera was stolen from me that night along with all my photos. My biggest regret was that I then had no pictures from this one day of my trip (and that I had to use disposable cameras the rest of the time). Over the years, I forgot the name of the place even. Until I started geotagging my flickr photos.
By geotagging, I realized I could look at a map and look at photos anywhere in the world. I used this to slowly track down the city of Les Baux that I didn't have pictures of. To me, this is more valuable than posting my pictures, but maybe my pictures will help someone else one day.
This brings me to a story. When I was in France in March 2004, I spent a day in the city of Arles and went to a little fortified town on some beautiful cliffs called Les Baux. Les Baux might have been one of the most beautiful spots I've ever been in in my life. I took many pictures and even sprung the 3 euros for access to the crumbling castle that offered even better views. I was so excited about these pictures. However, my camera was stolen from me that night along with all my photos. My biggest regret was that I then had no pictures from this one day of my trip (and that I had to use disposable cameras the rest of the time). Over the years, I forgot the name of the place even. Until I started geotagging my flickr photos.
By geotagging, I realized I could look at a map and look at photos anywhere in the world. I used this to slowly track down the city of Les Baux that I didn't have pictures of. To me, this is more valuable than posting my pictures, but maybe my pictures will help someone else one day.
Along these same lines, it seems like the fact that digital cameras can keep track of where you are should also help with post-vacation memory. I really think that having the location on a photo would be better than the date and time (that is usually wrong anyway). This seems like it would eventually make geotagging your own photos obsolete since plugging your camera in could already download all that information.
I'm also very interested in photosynthing - I think it's a neat idea to take the pictures and experiences of many other people and piece together something as intricate as the Notre Dame Cathedral. I think this might show how maybe our photos and experiences are not as unique as we might think- there is a common thread that links us all and we all have shared experiences. One thing I particularly liked about this lecture was reading the comments underneath it. This is a man with a passion (and a bit of attitude) for this technology. I'm not sure how many other people read through the comments, but it provided a little more specific information about this sort of technology.
I'm hoping to get back into taking pictures this summer while I'm on break, and this assignment reminded me of that. Now I'll know how to license, tag, and geotag all my photos!
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