davidsmeaton.com

i’ve got myself a handy little device, a geometr gps unit which attaches to my nikon camera. the unit locks on to satellites and tracks my location. then, when i take a photo, the data is automatically added to the exif data.

as a result, i can locate the exact position i was standing when i took the photo, which is very cool. the device arrived from the taiwan distributor last week. i had it on my camera thursday when i went to work and tested the gps tracker out. i took a few photos and also used the gps tracker on friday when i went to seoul forest.

here’s a photo i took on thursday (exif data is available in the photo’s properties):

once i downloaded the photo to my computer, i edited it and uploaded the photo to flickr.com. flickr has an automatic mapping service thanks to their owners at yahoo. i pulled up the map and got this result:

that’s very cool. the longitude and latitude points are very precise. i recognise the area and it’s exactly where i was standing when i took the photo. the pink dot represents where i stood. the arrow is pointing in the direction of the world trade centre.

the gps unit is great, although it does take about a minute to lock its position when i first turn the device on. however, that’s not a major problem. it doesn’t seem to use much battery life, so i can leave it on while i’m walking around and it constantly updates my position.

i definitely plan on taking the tracker with me during my travels … and i’ve promised the geometr company that i’d write a review of the gps device, which will probably appear in the next week or so.

thanks to american cartoons, i was one of many aussie kids who thought that if i tunneled through the earth, i’d come out at china. well, i know that’s not true now … thanks to this useful map tunneling tool. i actually discovered that australia would fit in the north atlantic ocean … and we wouldn’t touch any other nations.

kooky!

Although I love shooting in film, there are some definite advantages to digital photography. One of the coolest benefits is the ability to geotag photos.

Geotagging is, simply, the ability to add latitudinal and longitudinal data to a photograph. This data is usually captured through some kind of GPS device and can be added to the photo’s EXIF data.

For those who don’t know, EXIF data is a summary of the camera’s information for each photo. The EXIF data is stored when the photo is taken. If you view the EXIF data on your computer, you can learn many things about your photograph, including shutter speed, aperture, focal length, metering mode and a lot more. EXIF data also remembers your camera’s make and model, as well as if you’ve edited the photo and what settings you used in camera to adjust the photo (such as sharpening or extra saturation).

So, geotagging has become the latest craze in digital photography. Not only can you geotag your photo, but when you add your images to photo sharing sites like flickr.com, the site reads the geotagged information. The cool thing about this feature is that your photo is now able to be searched via its location, not just from keywords. Your photo can also be added to galleries or maps and compared to photographs taken at similar sites.

Currently, the best way to geotag photos is to carry a small GPS device with you. It requires that, later on the computer, you add the data to photos manually, or via simple software designed to port such data into photographs.

Sites like flickr’s organizr already allow you to add geotagging data to photos as you upload them.

However geotagging has become so popular that many manufacturers are creating geotagging devices for cameras. Some devices are designed to be carried in your pocket, but sync with the time stamp on your camera to update the GPS info through support software. Other devices connect straight to your camera and add the GPS data to each photo as its taken.

The future of geotagging will definitely come through manufacturers including GPS capabilities directly into the camera. Some high end cameras already incorporate this data, but soon it’ll become a standard in digital photography.

It’s definitely worth learning to use geotagging and add GPS data to your photos. Not only will that allow you to sort your pictures based on where you took them, but it will also enable your photos to be categorized, searched, grouped and compared online, since many popular sites already have geotagging features.

Before you know it, you’ll be using sites like Google Earth to search for photos of interesting places. Although geotagging won’t improve your photography, I think it does improve the photography ‘experience’. Not only can you show people where you’ve been, but if you see a fantastic photograph, you can take note of its GPS data and go hunt for the exact same spot.

Geotagging could also be a lot of fun in other ways. It can be a great educational tool, teaching children geography skills. It could also become a great new sport, like a kind of scavenger hunt. You can challenge people to get to certain places, take a photo from a set of precise coordinates, and return with photographic evidence of each place. It could be done on a limited scale (a city) or on a wider scale (nationally or even globally).

Geotagging is definitely something to get involved in, especially while the technology is still developing.

Happy shooting!

David Smeaton

life in korea is a bit of a drag … the weather is about as fickle as the natives. it constantly switches between rainy, hot, cold, smoggy, and combinations of the four. yesterday, just to be different, we had hail. admittedly, it was the first hail i’ve seen in korea and the first ever hail most of my students have seen. it hailed very loudly for about 20 minutes before returning to the regular downpour.

the day’s are long and tiring. however, i’m managing it all and also finding some time to relax. this weekend is a three day break, thanks to memorial day, so i plan on making the most of it. friday i have a dental appointment (checkup and clean), saturday i’m going to cheunmuro and getting my film developed. while i’m there i have a few things on the shopping list. the biggest item is a filter system for my camera. i’ve got my eye on a few smaller things, but mostly just accessories which won’t take up too much room and will be handy during my trip.

i did something crazy on sunday. i fired an email to an organization which has an arrangment to send teachers to north korea. they wrote back straight away with the contact details of the lady directly in charge of the program. they told me that the jobs in north korea don’t come up often, but i’m welcome to try. i sent an email to the woman who runs things and i’m waiting to hear back from her … i have no idea what i’ll do if they tell me i can actually get a job in DPRK. lol

the jobs are all plodding along. i’m dividing my time between my school and two offices. i also have a private ‘one on one’ lesson (authorised by my school). the school job is really annoying. my boss is a bean counter and tries to screw the teachers out of every possible cent. i’ve no doubt that i’ll have a run in with him before too long. however, i have passed the 5 month mark. so in another 4 weeks i’ll have completed half of my contract. that will leave me 6 more months and probably an extra 2 months to take me through to march 1st when i’ll leave korea.

speaking of which, i’m having fun planning my travels but i have two major quandries. the first problem is trying to work the 2010 world cup into my plans. the world cup starts in june and i don’t realistically think i’ll have made it to cuba by then. the most likely option is that i’ll just cut the travel wherever i am, fly to africa for the world cup, tour the rest of the continent, then fly back to where i left off. it’s not ideal, and hopefully i can work it so that i’m in the region at the right time … but if worst comes to worst i can at list wrangle things together enough to make it work.

i also tried making a travel calendar … but that went horribly awry. it’s almost impossible to calculate how long it’s going to take me. travel times between countries, the number of cities, how long in each place, are all really hard to guestimate. so i have given up on trying to make a calendar. instead, i’ll plan a comprehensive travel route and not worry about sticking to a time schedule.

and i’m pissed off that bhutan is going to be so damned expensive to visit … i’ve got the famous ‘tigers nest monastary’ on my list of things to see, but unless i can work out how to get around without spending $300 a day, then i’ll be forced to skip the entire country.

asia -

• china- i don’t plan to spend much time in china. i’d probably re-visit important locations in beijing for photography - tienanmen square, forbidden city, great wall. china will be the departure or arrival point for the trans-siberian railway
• hong kong - spend a night or two in hong kong. get out to the small island and visit the massive buddha
• north korea - i might spend 5-7 days in NK, just to see the sights
• cambodia - return to cambodia and see phnom penh
• vietnam - do a tour of vietnam, travel down the river
• singapore - i might spend 3-4 days in singapore, probably en-route to some other place. i may try and contact kiltedarab and stay with him. i’d like to see the singapore zoo and other local attractions
• mongolia - 1 or 2 weeks. i can stop here while on the trans-siberian railway. check out ulaan-bataar and maybe get out to the steppes. if the weather is too cold, i might just stay for a week
• nepal - definitely a week. wander around and shoot the scenes, especially monks and temples
• myanmar - this country is a big part of my travel plans. i will spend about a month in myanmar. i want to take my time and slowly see everything there is to do
• india - 1 or 2 months. i hope to enter india near calcutta. there, i will visit the mother theresa house and offer to stay and work with them for 2 weeks. from there i’ll go to agra, delhi and dharamsala. i hope to stay for at least a week in dharamsala - it’d also be nice to sneak over to the andaman islands for a little while. see the beaches and relax!!
• sri lanka - while in india, i may take a detour into sri lanka and look around the island for a week. it’d be nice to stay in colombo or relax on the beach. hookers and a suntan!!
• maldives - i won’t be too far from the maldives, and i could probably swing a few days there. i think it’s a pricey place to visit. but it’d be worth blowing a few hundred to get some nice sunset shots.

south america -

• brazil - obviously i want to see rio de janeiro and a few other sights. christ the redeemer on the hill would be quite something to behold. i may spend a few days on the beach or in other cities
• cuba - could i spend a week or two in cuba? check out the city, walk around and take photos. NOTE: i may have to go to cuba after i go to america … it’s possible that a visa stamp for cuba may affect my ability to enter the united states
• chile & rapa nui - this one is hard … i can visit chile while i’m in brazil. however getting out to rapa nui could be very complicated and expensive. i’d like to spend a week in chile and a week in rapa nui … if time and money permit
• mexico - i don’t really know much about mexico. but i’d like to see more than the tourist towns on the border of america. it’s something i’ll have to look into in more detail
• venezuela- travel through venezuela on my way to the carribean

europe -

• italy - rome will be expensive, but i’ll spend a few days there to see the vatican and the sights, including the coloseum and other ruins. i will probably also go to florence and vienna
• germany - there’s a lot of things i want to do in germany. visit the remains of the berlin wall, go to werder bremen, see museums and other things. i could spend two weeks in germany … easily!
• netherlands - i’ll return to the netherlands for a chance to re-photograph amsterdam … especially the nightlife
• belgium - a few days in belgium will be on the cards. i will head to the small town that has the australian ceremony every day … but i forget the name of it
• spain - barcelona and madrid … sweet!! it’d be great to bum around the country and see the sights. i hope to get to a barcelona game.
• france - i will re-visit paris to photograph the sites, but i also want to get to marseille and a few other cities too
• norway - i could live here. i don’t know what i’ll do in norway though.
• denmark - i’d pass through denmark, so might stop a few days around copenhagen
• finland - this is another ‘in between’ place … so i’ll probably spend a couple of days looking around
• switzerland - go to the alps, see the famous buildings, enjoy the scenery and mountains, see the lego museum
• czech republic - enjoy beautiful prague at night.
• greece - athens, aek, mt olympus, ruins, amphitheatres, etc
• russia - if the weather is warmer, it’ll be great to see the kremlin, red square, lenin’s grave, etc
• sweden - i hope to just look around and see lots of snow covered mountains … in northern europe, i really want to see lots of landscapes
• turkey - turkey is a place i want to scout as a possible destination to live. while there i can go to the iraq border, look around and jump across to egypt.
• gibraltar - definitely stay a night in gibraltar while on my way to and from morocco. only 7 kilometers, but i’m sure there are some cool sights.

other -

• trinidad & tabago - boat from venezuela to T&T, look around
• barbados - boat to barbados, find some white sand
• dominican republic - boat to DR, find out what happens there
• cuba - boat or fly to cuba. spend some time photographing the amazing colourful streets
• egypt- 5 or 6 days in egypt to see the main sights - pyramids, sphinx, nile. i may stay longer to do a 2 or 3 day camel trek … it’d make for great photography
• morocco - casablanca is very close to the bottom of spain. i might spend a few days there, just to say i’ve been!
• america- i really hope i have time to do a road trip in america. i don’t know where i’ll fly in yet, but it’ll either be LA or NY (likeliest destinations) … but i will probably bus between them, seeing whatever sights i can along the way. this may take me a month or more:
  • • san fransisco
    • LA and hollywood
    • las vegas
    • seattle (hopefully)
    • boston
    • NY
    • washington dc
    • miami
    • atlanta
    • and a whole bunch of places in between.