The Importance of Place – GPS and Photography

Ruth Happel

WildPortraits 

Introduction

My photography stretches back far before the digital era, and many of my photo memories are etched into the emulsion of slide film. A cabinet in my studio has stacks of these slides, and an alarming number have managed to escape their confinement in yellow boxes without proper identification. Although my aunt, a dedicated nature photographer and my original photo mentor, always advised me to carefully label my photos, quite a few of my slides have inadequate descriptions. They are now spilling out into photographic entropy, pictures without identity. While her slides were neatly labeled with date, place, and a concise but effective description of content, all too many of my own slides dating back as far as 30 years ago have no information other than the images contained in the slides. These photos of tropical forests from Asia, Africa, and South America mingle in numbing similarity from my many years as an academic research scientist studying rain forests. Only painstaking study and my fading knowledge of tropical ecology help me to reconstruct when and where these pictures were taken.

I took my first step in the right direction of organizing my photos by becoming an early adopter of digital cameras, beginning back in 1998. My migration away from film cameras was initiated in 1997 by disillusionment with several experiences in developing my film. It began with a batch of 6 rolls that were damaged by a photo lab, distributing spots all over my photos. Shortly after, I sent in two rolls of film, one to Kodak, which was lost, and the next batch, to Fuji , assuming they were more reliable, which was also lost. This convinced me I wanted to take control of my images, and I moved to digital, never looking back.

In addition to avoid losing my pictures, I soon became enamored with all the information the camera would record for me, like a diligent research assistant. My first digital camera recorded the date and time, image dimensions and a few other features. As I bought new cameras and the EXIF standard improved, more and more information was added that I had been too busy and organizationally challenged (of course not too lazy) to record.

The EXIF data records almost all the information my aunt so carefully noted on her slides, ranging from the obvious information of time and date, to the minute details she garnered from field notes such as the f-stop and shutter speed. There was, until recently, still one vast gap in this information that could be automatically encoded with digital photos. It was the one by which I and many others often sort our photos, by place. Now, GPS enabled cameras and other devices promise hope that one of these frontiers of EXIF information will be covered.

As an avid hiker, I have always been interested in the Global Positioning System technology, and appreciated the fact I would no longer get lost in the woods. Well, okay, maybe I still find myself lost now and then, but at least GPS offers a more reliable exit strategy than my skills at map and compass. Although I don’t use it on a daily basis, I appreciate its insurance policy of avoiding getting totally disoriented. I remember still the feeling I had 25 years ago when I was briefly lost in a remote Peruvian jungle, and have no desire to experience that particular emotion again.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a system of 24 satellites orbiting 11,000 miles above the earth. They circle the globe twice a day, but at any given time, you are unlikely to pick up even the half on your side of the earth. Fortunately, only 3 or 4 satellites are needed to use the GPS receiver to navigate. The radio signal sent by GPS is not able to reach deeply through solid objects, such as buildings, but works well outdoors. This is a rapidly evolving technology, with many innovations over the past decade.

Twelve years ago, I remember renting a car that came with GPS navigation. It was amazing to watch the car move through the streets of San Francisco , though with an occasional missed direction as the GPS reconfigured. Although I can’t afford the current fleet of high end cars with GPS built in, sometimes I do travel with my own scaled down version, a GPS receiver in the dash hooked up to a SmartPhone. This has helped me save time on vacation when I would otherwise be stopping for directions.

I have watched the evolution of GPS photography with great interest, from the earlier Kodak cameras, gradually evolving to what is available now. Only a few cameras on the market today support direct recording of GPS data to EXIF – the Nikon D1X, D2X and D2Hs, the Ricoh RDC-i700G, and the SurveyLab ike300 unit. The Ricoh is intriguing - it uses an internal GPS in CompactFlash form. The Ricoh also supports external laser range-finder technology allowing the camera to receive a coordinate reading from the camera’s position and the object being photographed. The ike300 includes a PocketPC, digital camera, laser distance meter, a compass, and inclinometer. This is useful in allowing the measurement of the distance of objects photographed. The ike300 also calculates the GPS coordinates of the object photographed as well as the position of the photographer. However, the Ricoh and ike cameras have relatively low image resolution, so I decided to use a Nikon to research this article.

My Experience with Photo GPS

The Equipment

In order to explore this technology, I used several items to enable me to encode GPS data directly to my digital photo files. I worked with the Nikon D2X, which I feel is among the best digital cameras available today, and a modest but reliable GPS unit, the Geko 301, linked together by a Red Hen Systems GPS-D2X adapter. 

Nikon D2X - I selected this camera because of the high image quality, with 12.4 megapixel resolution, and its ability to communicate directly with GPS devices.

Geko 301 Personal Navigator - This unit uses the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS). WAAS was developed by the FAA for pilots beginning in the late 1990’s, and approved for use on land in 2000. The specifications enable accuracy less than 10 feet, though in my experience the unit never reported greater than 15 to 20 foot accuracy. It also includes an electronic compass, and allows for elevation, location by UTM, latitude and longitude data to be encoded. In order to calibrate the altimeter, it may be necessary to use the known barometric pressure. It also has information about when the sunrise and sunset are based on time and exact location. This unit uses latitude and longitude as the default position format, and the default map datum is WGS 84, a standard measure used by most units today.

The Geko unit includes compass direction, but unfortunately this feature is not recorded to EXIF by the Nikon, so the data is lost. It would be useful to have this information, since then it would be possible to at least partially infer, knowing the angle and location, the subject being photographed.

Other models of GPS allow other features, though they don’t necessarily link to the Nikon. For example, some Magellan units show where the sun and moon are relative to the horizon when in the compass screen mode, and this data could be used to infer the light levels of the photos, especially in association with real time weather data.

The Geko GPS notes the accuracy on the screen, and it would be good for this degree of precision to be encoded with the GPS data, to show whether the reliability, for example, is good to within 16 feet or 217 feet, a range I saw in using my own unit.

Red Hen Systems D2X-GPS adapter -   This provides a simple way to attach and connect a Geko 301 to a Nikon D2X, mounting on top of the camera. According to the manufacturer, it allows compatibility with most GIS systems. The specs note that the data captured in the EXIF metadata of the JPEG image file can be read by Red Hen Systems’ MediaMapper and PixPoint for ArcGIS to create map features linked directly to the photo file.

 

Using the Geko 301 on Red Hen Systems mount on a Nikon D2X in the field.

Digital Darkroom: I have Adobe Photoshop CS2 installed on my computer, and the equipment I used, and probably most available today, transfer information on latitude, longitude and altitude, which shows up when opening images in Photoshop as part of the EXIF data.

Setting up the Nikon D2X to use a GPS

The Nikon D2X and D2Hs require a Nikon MC-35 cable to attach the GPS to the camera.   The GPS interface must be set to use the NMEA interface (The National Marine Electronics Association), which is done though the setup menu on both Garmin units I used.  When using the Red Hen Systems D2X-GPS unit the cable is combined in a holder that firmly holds the GPS to the flash mount on top of the camera:

 

Nikon D2X, Geko 301, and Red Hen Systems D2X-GPS

To change the 2 AAA batteries in the GPS unit, it can be detached while the mount and cable stay attached to the camera:

 

Geko 301 removed to change the batteries 

The GPS adapter is easy to remove if the camera will be used indoors with a flash:

 

D2X-GPS removed to use a flash 

  As an alternative to the Red Hen Systems GPS adapter, the Nikon MC-35 cable can be used in conjunction with a standard Garmin GPS cable for connecting the GPS to a personal computer:

 

Garmin eTrex GPS and Nikon MC-35 cable

  This alternative is less expensive than the Red Hen Systems adapter, but in limited field tests it was less reliable.  The D2X-GPS adapter holds the GPS in the correct orientation to get optimal satellite reception, and it is significantly easier to use.

Field Test

Over a period of a couple weeks, I have been experimenting with the GPS and camera, and have been pleased overall with my experiences. After briefly trying another unit which didn’t lock up very effectively, I switched to the Red Hen provided Geko 301. It performed almost flawlessly in the open outdoors, usually did well in forest cover, but as would be expected, rarely worked inside.

I used the Nikon D2X camera, with a Geko GPS receiver mounted on top, connected with the Red Hen adapter. I would turn the unit on as soon as I went outside, and it would generally take a minute or less to lock up if I was out in the open, longer in a forest. As I observed the screen on the GPS as it locked up, reliability would usually begin at 100 or more feet, but within seconds generally was accurate to within 50 feet. Even when I used the WAAS signals, in my own locations I never achieved greater than 16 foot accuracy, but for my purposes this is sufficient.

In the two weeks I tested it, I took it on 9 major hikes in Squak Mountain State Park , each at least one to two hours, near daily smaller hikes and excursions, and a trip to the Woodland Park Zoo. In almost all cases, I found the GPS to be an unobtrusive, but helpful, assistant – reliably recording the location of photographs as I took them. Given the light weight of the unit and its relatively small footprint on the top of the camera, it did not impact my workflow as I took photographs.   

Both the GPS and Nikon D2X LCD top control panel display the status of the GPS, and whether it is locked on satellites. I found it would be more useful if the camera viewfinder had an indication of whether the GPS is locked or not when you are shooting a photo, so you could determine it without looking at the top of the camera.

High accuracy GPS signals have only been available since the late 1990’s, and the technology is clearly still evolving. On an all day hike climbing to the top of Squak Mountain , the GPS briefly lost the signal once or twice, but continued working even in dense forest cover. On the remaining 8 hikes, there were two days that it took quite a while to lock up, and then lost the signal at least half a dozen times. On the other hikes, it would lose the signal at most once or twice, and there were at least 4 hikes when it never lost the signal. At the zoo, it was able to pick up the signal outdoors, and also through a roof if it was made of a clear material such as glass or plastic, but not more solid types.

There are several options for enhancing the reliability of GPS. One possibility is using an external antenna. These are available for most units, including the one I used, though I have not tested one of these. There is also a program that allows users to track satellite locations and determine the optimal times for GPS use, and this program could be used to aid in finding optimal shooting times and locations.

The overall impact of these problems on my workflow was minimal. The benefits of using a GPS clearly outweighed the costs for me as primarily a nature photographer. This camera is an ideal solution for me.

Applications

If you take a photo and know only the time or the place, there is only so much you can infer. If you know both, that provides much more information. When a photo is taken it may be only personally significant, but over time it may gain historical or biological interest. The Internet enables others to share what you captured, knowing the specifics of when and where it was taken. Years later, you or another photographer can return to the place and see what has become of it. A building may be gone, a city might be almost unrecognizable from development, and historians could use this as a valuable tool in studying the past. For biologists, it can be a tool to track and monitor endangered plants and animals, though hopefully not to document their extinction. The photo represents information on where to look, and what to look for, in searching for what has become of a unique moment.

Photo Sharing Websites

There is a groundswell of interest in mapping the world photographically.  Many websites are springing up in an effort to transfer images to an organized grid of knowledge. It seems likely that the websites such as Google Earth and Virtual Earth will only get better and more comprehensive. These sites and similar efforts will be both a clearinghouse for data, and a way for GPS enabled photos to be placed into an increasingly accurate visual representation of the world. Much as the photo books showing the world in 24 hours, soon there will be a professional and amateur community driving a photographic map of the world non stop, 24 hours a day. Eventually, with enough photos uploaded, there could be a virtual real time atlas of the world. People can share their photos, and anyone planning a trip, or just curious, could look at essentially live pictures, and track historical images to compare with their own contemporary photos.

There are currently a number of websites which allow photographers to upload their images, which are then shared by a community. If someone wants to see what New York City looks like at midnight of December 31, they can pull up those images, either taken in the past, or as a New Year’s Eve celebration unfolds minute by minute. If someone took pictures on a once in a lifetime safari trip to Africa but their cartridge was damaged, they could search the internet for someone else who was there at the same time, maybe even finding a picture someone took with them in the background.

Two of the best location-oriented sites today are smugmug.com and wwmx.org. These allowed me to upload files and display the images on their sites. I used a small group of photos I shot at the zoo, and a larger set of my hike to the central peak of Squak Mountain . These photos were taken mainly to test the unit, and to drop digital breadcrumbs to show my route, so they aren’t especially artistic, but they demonstrate the accuracy and utility of this technology.

The Worldwide Media Exchange (http://www.wwmx.org) site was created by Microsoft Research to explore how location tagging and GPS use can be combined with digital photography. The site is free to use, and provides tools for “location stamping” digital images using track files from a handheld GPS, and also provides tools for retrieving tracks files from a handheld GPS. The location stamping tools work by using the time stamps from the camera and the GPS to correlate location information. In addition to these tools, WWMX also supports uploading of images to http://www.wwmx.org and mapping the images. Since this is a research project, it is not a traditional photo site. It is free, but any images uploaded are available to be viewed by any visitor to the site. 

Since I was using the Nikon D2X with the Red Hen Systems GPS, the location stamping step was not necessary.  I just uploaded the original JPEG images from the camera to http://www.wwmx.org.  When the images are uploaded they are mapped by location, and a visitor to the site can view all the digital photographs taken at a specific location.  After uploading my Squak Mountain photos, they look like this:

 

WWMX map of Squak Mountain Hike

It appears that my GPS encoded photos are the only ones in this location.  From looking at the map, the photos visually follow the trail I hiked, including a loop I followed. 

The zoo, where I took some test GPS encoded photos, is a more popular spot for photography:

 

WWMX map of Zoo Photographs

I contributed six photos to WWMX from my zoo visit. It is now visible with probably a hundred other images from the same area taken by other people.  The butterfly house was an especially popular location- a number of images were taken there by other photographers.  None of the other butterfly pictures were encoded with the same location as my shots.   

If GPS is so accurate, why would my butterfly shot stand alone?  Is the GPS data that inaccurate? You can find the answer to that question at a different photo web site: http://www.smugmug.com.  SmugMug is not a research website, but rather a commercial photo sharing site, so its services are not free. In writing this article I signed up for an account and uploaded the images into two galleries.  The galleries are located at: http://rhappel.smugmug.com. In addition to providing traditional photo gallery services, SmugMug also provides a mapping utility for images using road maps, satellite imagery, or a combination of both:

 

SmugMug map of Zoo Photographs

The URL for this map is: http://maps.smugmug.com/?feedType=geoAlbum&Data=800519.

If you look carefully at the image, you will see that the photo of the butterfly is placed inside a slightly curving building that is the plastic enclosed butterfly house. The GPS was accurate to within about 16 feet of the actual location of the image. The discrepancy of the images on the WWMX site is probably due to inaccuracies introduced by location stamping.  For almost any purpose this level of discrepancy is unimportant, but it is good to know that this level of precision exists if needed when using a camera-mounted GPS.

In addition to the zoo pictures, I also uploaded the Squak Mountain photos to SmugMug:

 

SmugMug map of Squak Mountain Hike

This map is located at: http://maps.smugmug.com/?feedType=geoAlbum&Data=800569.

This map demonstrates how time and location can be used together. If you press the play link on the right hand side of the screen, the SmugMug map will follow the sequence in which the pictures were taken, and my route up and down the mountain. If you click on a picture on the right side, the map will zoom to the location where the picture was taken:

 

SmugMug map of Squak Mountain Central Peak

In this example the picture selected was a view from the mountain peak.  SmugMug again shows the location as the antenna farm on top of the central peak, within about 20 feet of where the picture was actually taken.

These two sites are examples of the potential that can be achieved when location is part of what is captured in a digital photograph. In the case of both WWMX and SmugMug no additional steps were necessary beyond uploading the images to the appropriate site.

Photographer Benefits in Combined Metadata of Place and Time:

There are other major advantages in having GPS information encoded in the EXIF data of a photograph. For a photographer trying to organize a vast collection of images, it would be of immense help. Let’s say a photo agency contacted a photographer and wanted a photo of a lion in Samburu, Kenya . If the photographer had sorted the images and categorized them simply as lions, it is likely many of the images would be from multiple locations in Africa , and even zoos. But if they were also tagged automatically with the location, then images shot at Samburu would be pulled up, and a search of all lion images would be avoided.

In a broader context, time and place could be used to find images of specific events, such as a July 4^th parade in your home town, or a specific Super Bowl football game. Various websites give place names by latitude and longitude, and could tie in to databases of places that could then be searched by time and date for special events.

Among the best photo sellers are pictures with a sunrise or sunset. Time of day helps in determining whether a photo is a sunrise or a sunset, but with an accurate GPS location it can be determined precisely. With GPS encoded locations and accurate local time, it would be straightforward to categorize specific photos as shot during sunrise or sunset. Knowing the time and place, you could tell if your photo was taken at these times, and depending on the compass direction of the image, even know with some certainty if the sun or the moon was in the shot.

The Garmin GPS receiver I tested gives sunset and sunrise times based on the GPS and time, and a Magellan receiver gives the compass points of the sun. Most GPS receivers give sunrise and sunset data, moon phases, and some also provide sun azimuth and elevation. There are programs which provide exact sun path information, including the sun’s angle, so ultimately this data could be linked to the GPS information to categorize shots by light levels, and whether they include sunset shots.

Within the United States , historical weather data is available on the Weather Underground site. Historical weather is organized by Zip Code in the USA :

  

Weather the day of the Squak Mountain Hike

The Zip Code can be determined automatically from GPS coordinates using a web service such as MapPoint. The screen shot above is the weather in Issaquah the day I climbed Squak Mountain . This Weather Underground page also includes sunrise and sunset times.  You could potentially tell whether the day was sunny or cloudy, light levels, and other information by combining time of day, GPS location and weather.

For the region I photographed to test this camera and GPS, there is an online website run by King County , http://www.metrokc.gov.html with extensive GIS information tied into GPS data. With some data mining, I could harness this mapped information to my photos. There are a number of programs that work to integrate GIS data from the government and other sources into programs such as ArcView. I didn’t explore this to a great extent, because at present it would require an extra step for photographers to integrate this information. I imagine eventually there will be a cottage industry devoted to correlating this information so it would be linked directly to GPS data, and ultimately photographic data. Some sources for these derivative data would include the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Global Change Master Directory, at: http://gcmd.nasa.gov/Aboutus/sitemap.html, and many other sources.

GPS Data and Nature Photography

With a background as a biological anthropologist, my primary interest is in nature photography, so I brainstormed to come up with some applications of special relevance to wildlife photography. Of course, many of these ideas also apply to other types of photos.

In gathering information of interest to inferring a more fine grained idea of the content of nature photos, altitude is of valuable inferential value. This data can be gathered directly from the GPS, as with the unit I used, or by knowing the exact latitude and longitude. When you know the altitude, you can determine the topography and slope steepness, and infer if the photo is of a mountain.

Land use data, available through the federal government, might be evaluated to determine the biome, forest type, and other information to deduce the content of the photo. The habitat type could be determined, such as deciduous versus coniferous forest, even to the type of forest, such as oak hickory. Government research provides additional data on logging history, making it possible to determine if you are photographing a pine plantation or old growth forest.

Seasons are one of the most popular themes for calendars, and many other stock photo needs. Using altitude, location, and time, correlated with weather data, including frost and freeze dates, and solar radiation, it would be possible to classify photos by season. This stream of inferential data would allow you to determine, for example, if a photo of snow was just an average January snowstorm, or a once in a century freak July snow. It would also be possible to calculate the “effective” season of a photo. For example, if you take a picture in April, this might appear to be winter in Lake Placid , New York (and linking to weather data, you might even confirm it was snowing when the photo was taken) versus spring or even summer in Houston, Texas .

Another possible piece of metadata could be gathered by studying tide charts. For example, if you took a photo at the coast, you could determine if it was at high or low tide. If it was shot in Washington State , with additional information it might be possible to infer the photo was of tide pools. If it was taken in North Carolina , with additional weather data, it could be determined to represent storm surge from a hurricane. Some GPS receivers calculate tides, based on the moon’s location and movements, and this would be valuable data to capture.

Part of the point in knowing the exact time and place is to make an indisputable photographic record of that unique moment. For example, you might document year after year the same patch of wildflowers. The photos would provide a record of their exact location, to assist in relocating them for future photo shoots. They would also be a valuable tool in biological study of the changing dynamics of a local flower population.

In Tennessee , where I first started using digital cameras, I would explore a ravine in the national forest next to my home during spring wildflower season. Every day I would shoot hundreds of pictures, following another wise adage of my aunt not to skimp on film. Now, nearly a decade later, I would like to return and compare the distribution and phenology of the flowers over time. Without the GPS data, however, I can only roughly estimate where the original photos were taken, and it is now much harder for me to document the fate of these flowers.

Information on exact GPS coordinates also allows photographers to categorize places of interest, sorting all images automatically that meet these criteria. For example, if I want to know which images I shot in my garden, I would map out the coordinates of the corners of my yard, specify an accuracy range measured in feet and seconds, and then know with confidence that images matching this search would be in my garden. This is much easier than my current method, which involves looking at each image, marking the flower photos that I know were photographed in my yard, and manually moving them into a folder I have labeled as my garden photos. In combination with image recognition techniques which are being developed, I might soon be able to tell what types of flowers, trees, or wildlife I have taken pictures of and the photos would be accordingly sorted into further subfolders.

Suggestions

Given the current state of the art with GPS technology, it is possible to build very small units. There are GPS enabled cell phones, and GPS watches. It would seem useful if these devices were integrated into cameras to provide a self contained unit that would provide reliable place data both indoors and out. If a GPS receiver was part of the camera, there would be no need for adding on cables and extra devices. The added complexity adds to the weight, requires extra batteries, and adds more equipment that can fail. Though the suite of equipment I tested worked very well together, it would be even easier not to need to worry about cable connections, separate batteries, and other issues.

For the average photographer, where most pictures are taken on impulse indoors, it is likely that the ideal geospatial data modeling solution needs to combine GPS with cell phone technology, since the delay to lock might mean many pictures wouldn’t be encoded with data. Certainly most indoor shots of birthdays, weddings, and similar popular photo themes wouldn’t gather the GPS data, since most GPS receivers don’t work reliably inside.

In the long run location tracking in cameras should lock up faster and work better indoors. Technology could be integrated to record where the signal was lost, allowing for triangulation to provide an estimate of the location, by seeing the last known location. If too much data was missing, it would then call up additional sources of information, such as the E911 location information in cell phones.

At present, there are hybrid solutions that encode GPS images without using the setup I describe here. Some photographers now use cell phones with GPS cameras built in, or carry GPS units and tag their photos with a time stamp, and then carefully weave the two together. It seems the time is ripe for developing more robust solutions so cameras are equipped with geospatial information. GPS could be combined, for example, building a cell phone into a camera, to allow for more robust location gathering capabilities. Ring laser gyros and accelerometers could help enhance GPS information by showing the orientation, and this would lead to better calculations of exact locations.

In looking beyond a simple GPS unit, there are other positioning devices that could be integrated into a camera, such as the cell phones now available that are GPS enabled. Place Lab, http://www.placelab.org/, uses PDAs and cell phones to find radio beacons like wireless access points to help locate position. According to their website, 802.11 and GSM beacons are prevalent enough in the greater Seattle area to allow on average an accuracy of about 50-100 meters.

In addition to latitude, longitude, and altitude the GPS unit I used also recorded compass direction. The Nikon camera firmware, however, does not record this data in EXIF, though the standard has a location for compass direction. It would be good for camera manufacturers to support this additional GPS data, and to ensure it is stamped to the EXIF files at the time photos are taken. There is already quite a bit of data ready to be encoded in EXIF files regarding GPS data. It is time for camera manufacturers to take advantage of this, by building in GPS, and standardizing the capture and recording of this information. There are also other forms of metadata, such as the sun’s position, the angle of view captured by the camera, and other features.

It would be useful to watermark images by date and time, incorporating the exact GPS location with a time stamp. Cameras could also incorporate digital fingerprint recognition, so the photo was further stamped with the unique code of an individual photographer. There would then be incontrovertible proof of ownership. If the GPS and time stamp were hard wired, it would help ensure honesty in both directions. A photographer would know these were their photos, and not tampered with. An agency could make sure the photographer got the photos they turned over in the field on location, not digitally enhanced afterward in the computer.

With knowledge of the direction the photo is taken, the exact compass angle of the shot, and additional EXIF data on lens size and focal length, it would be possible to infer the sliced point of view, and at least make a good guess of the actual photo subject. For example, a photo stamped as being from Seattle could be analyzed to determine if the photo was of Mt. Rainier , or a building in downtown Seattle , or both. If this data was encoded with the photo as a calculated algorithm, it would then be possible to sort and categorize the photos without the need for additional input from photographers.

With cameras including a variety of geospatial technology, it would be possible to find the distance to an object photographed by laser, the angle the photo was taken, and the exact height of the camera from the ground. Since the location and topography would be known, it would then be possible, for example, to determine if the photo was of a sunset sky, the top of the Empire State Building , or the front of your home. Educated guesses based on GIS data could help to fill in metadata to automatically sort photos. Based on a variety of search criteria, a photographer could select a certain acceptable degree of accuracy to categorize their photos. The search model might vary depending on whether they want a sort of their photos to come up with lots of probable photos of interest, or just a few of almost positive interest. For example, a photographer could input an algorithm noting the exact location of the photo, the distance to the photo subject, and the angle of the camera, among other variables, and allow the computer to sort all photos with at least an 80% probability that the photo is of Mt. Rainier .

Conclusions

The saying goes there is a time and place for everything. With GPS technology, this has two meanings. It is a way to literally know both when and where the picture was taken, two pieces of information that together enable photographers to encode their images with powerful ways of sorting and organizing them. I also feel now is the time and place for GPS to become ubiquitous in a variety of technological devices, and cameras are one great place for them to reside.

After a couple weeks of exploring and experimenting with GPS photography, I am convinced I no longer want to shoot without it. My next camera purchase will be contingent on its GPS capability. Although I would prefer a fully integrated camera that is self contained regarding GPS abilities, I would for the moment accept a compromise just to have the ability to encode GPS. I hope that a demand by photographers for location information will drive camera manufacturers to include it on all future digital cameras.

I am excited by the possibilities this offers, opening up a new world of how to organize photos, and how to think about them. There will be a new internet space which allows photographers worldwide to share images, and as the community grows, it will begin to simulate time travel. It won’t be long until the worldwide web allows us to be anywhere on the globe in an instant and digital photos can be an important portal in taking us there.

Acknowledgments: I wish to thank the Microsoft Rich Media Group (RMG) for loaning me the equipment used in writing this article. Ruth Happel, the author, is the owner of WildPortraits.