26.7.06

Geotagging

ramp

I have discovered a great tool that allows you to precisely pinpoint the location of any shot taken and add the geographical co-ordinates to it. This shot is of the up-ramp to the rooftop car-park of Footscray shopping centre, a 2005 image that resurfaced thanks to iView Media Pro3. I've also used iView Media Pro3 to confirm the date I made an image as recently as two weeks ago. It's funny how our memories are never that as sharp as we'd like to think they are.

Meanwhile over at the Melbourne Flickr group, outrage at Southbank's recent decision to ban photography inside the complex has prompted some action by some of the group.

While I wholeheartedly agree amateurs and artists alike you should have free reign to photograph whatever and whenever they like, however, it still boils down to the place being private property and the owners have the right to ask that no photography occurs there. I mean really, there are some interesting architectural details there and there is always lots of life and colour, but is it really going to dampen Melbourne's cultural life or creative energy, I think not. Personally, Southbank is rarely a place I would go out of my way to visit, just to photograph, I'm more inclined usually to pull out my camera because I'm there and "happen" to see something I like, and these days that's pretty rare.

This issue even made the mainstream news, and little Johnny even had two words to say about it. From where I sit it's really all about shopkeepers thinking that their displays are somehow worthy of protection, or if you photograph them you are stealing ideas or using the photographs to somehow undermine their sales, meh whatevah!

Update

Now the Age has weighed into the argument

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isn't is strange how this is getting so much attention when it's been a common thing at similar venues for ages? Hopefully, with the public view on them, they and other shopping centres will train their security to act politely which hasn't always been the case. Usually it's rentacop types doing whatever they feel like.

Stuart said...

Hi barb yes it is a little strange that, hmmmm, food for thought?