NOTE: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.

I've long loved Google Maps, and especially with my travels and photo geoencoding, I often use it to further explore a place I've already visited in person.

For years, though, I wondered why a distance-measurement feature was not included, since that would seem one of the first enhancements that would come to mind. I eventually created a simple distance-measurement tool myself, adding it to my online exif tool, so that when you use it to view the data for a geoencoded image, you can measure distances from the photo spot (here's an example). Still, my solution was less than ideal for general use, and so I remained perplexed and slightly frustrated.

Well as yet further proof that I am an idiot, I only recently discovered that Google Maps has had a distance-measurement tool for the last year and a half. It, and hundreds of other built-in enhancements, have been hidden behind the easily-overlooked “My Maps” link. The name implied to me that it was nothing more than a way to save locations I visited often, but as I discovered last week, it's so very much more.

I used the distance-measurement tool while writing my post the other day about Okinawa's little Kouri Island when I commented that although it's just a mile from shore, you have to transverse over five miles worth of bridges and intermediate islands to get to it...

There are so many little enhancements that I stopped counting after a few hundred. Some are universally-useful tools like the distance-measurement tool, latitude/longitude display tools, and circle/proximity tools. Some are sets of marked locations, such as real-time earthquake info, locations in Japan that offer a pretty night view, or Top 100 Highlights in Sweden (to pick three of hundreds). Some are just fun, such as Dig a Hole Through the Earth (which tells me that doing so from my place in Kyoto would put me in the ocean 500 miles off the coast of southern Brazil).

I'm probably the only one in the world who didn't know about all this, but I'm posting about it anyway, just in case one or two others hadn't heard of it. You can check it out by browsing the directory of enhancements.

Note that to use these features, you have to add it to your “my maps” list, which itself requires that you are registered with a (free) Google account. Well worth it.

NOTE: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.

Coming up next week is the festival of setsubun, which I wrote about after last year's events: Setsubun and Mamemaki: Driving out the Demons. Among the variety of events are the demon-driving-out highlighted in that post, and a ceremonial bonfire (so to speak) that I wrote about in Intense Burn.

February 3rd falls on a weekday this year, so I won't be able to attend the photogenic events at the Heian Shrine, but I thought I'd share photos from one more event from last year, the “throwing of the beans”.

As I wrote last year, the beans represent goodness and good fortune, which is why they can be used to drive out demons. For the same reasons, they are good when thrown at people, so one event at the shrine has a small group of dignitaries showering the populace with beans...

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 125 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/3.2, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Fumie and Anthony Heading In
to get beaned... you can see many packets of beans flying through the air

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/3.2, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Dignitaries Throwing Beans

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/3.2, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
More Dignitaries Throwing Beans

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/3.2, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Dignitaries Throwing Beans III

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/320 sec, f/3.2, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Dignitaries Throwing Beans IV

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/350 sec, f/3.2, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Dignitaries Throwing Beans V

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
View From Afar
the blue tarps cover items for the later intense burn

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/4, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Aftermath

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — ¹/1600 sec, f/2.8, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Aftermath II

NOTE: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/1250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
The Lengths I Go
To Get a Shot
— on my belly in the middle of a Japanese road —

I posted the other day a nice picture of the sun streaming down to light a bridge that I took during our New-Year's trip to Okinawa, and on that post I lamented about the general unexciting flatness of the pictures from that day.

Still, the visit to the small island was a fun excursion, so dull photo or not, here they come...

Kouri Island is a small, generally circular island about a mile and a quarter across, less than a mile offshore from the Okinawa mainland. It's connected by a big bridge, but not directly: you have to cross three bridges and two other islands, traveling about five miles, to get there from the mainland.

There's pretty much nothing on it of interest, but it was fun to explore.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
View of the Island
from the nearest intermediate island on the route in

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 66 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/3.5, ISO 280 — map & image data — nearby photos
near the parking lot at the start of the bridge:
Yellow, for a Change
Japan has lots of red berries this time of year

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
One-Handed Photography At 70kph
through the windshield

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/11, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
First Stop on the Island

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 35 mm — ¹/200 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Me
( photo by Fumie M. Friedl )

Despite the wide open views seen above, much of the island was covered with dense foliage of some sort... trees, sugar cane, etc., so if was often difficult to tell where you were if you couldn't see the bridge for orientation.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/9, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Shack

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 48 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/13, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sugar Cane

Sometimes roads were barely more than paths through the brush or sugar cane....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Tight Fit

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 35 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Gunna' Get Tighter

iPhone / Google Maps / Live GPS
in action

Half the fun of exploring new places is getting lost, but not too lost. The rental car had the navigation system, which was great, but what was fantastic was the real-time location on Google Maps satellite images, via my iPhone.

I snapped the screenshot at right while we were at an overlook at the highest point on the island (marked with a blue dot). I added the red arrow, to show where the two “tight fit” shots above were taken. (You can click on the “map & image data” link under any picture to see where it was taken.)

You can zoom in on the satellite images to fairly good detail (both on the iPhone, and in your browser) and get an amazing perspective on your location. There are a few drawbacks, as one might expect. The satellite views give you no sense of elevation, and on them the island looks flat. In reality, it's the top of a mountain sticking out of the water.

(As an aside, I'll note that Google Earth can give a great sense of elevation.... one that can be downright eerie at times. If you have Google Earth, click on this link to launch Google Earth and be brought to a view of a snowy area. Let it load completely, and be sure that “Terrain” is checked in the list of Layers. Try to visualize in 3D what you see. Then, try panning the image back and forth a bit, and suddenly it will all be clear.)

Anyway, while the location is real-time accurate due to the iPhone's GPS receiver, the images, of course, are not. When you zoom up to the area where the “tight fit” photos were taken, it looks like a perfectly nice, easily-passable road. Maybe the image was taken after the harvest. The location where the blue dot is is a park/overlook, but in the image it's a forest. I take it, then, that the overlook is new.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 32 mm — ¹/1000 sec, f/11, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
There's the Bridge Again
( the island is a small circle, so the bridge comes into view eventually )

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/11, ISO 220 — map & image data — nearby photos
And Again

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — ¹/2500 sec, f/6.3, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Ferry Bypassing the Island
no need for a ferry since the bridge was build, three years ago

I like the pictures for their memory value, but photographically they're uninspiring. Still, the day wasn't a total photographic loss. On the way there we saw wild cherry blossoms blooming in January, and on the way home I snapped the Lonely Island shot. And later that evening is when I had the amazing luck with the low-light photos at the hotel.

NOTE: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.

Some things just leave me totally dumbfounded....

Carolyn Wright has an interesting article on her Photo Attorney blog: Update on the Lawsuit against Benjamin Ham for Photographing Private Property. It's about the legal wranglings surrounding a photographer who took a pretty photo of some trees while trespassing on private property. The owners of the property sued him to stop selling copies of that pretty photo, and much legal paperwork ensued.

There was, apparently, no dispute over whether the photographer, Benjamin Ham, trespassed on private property (“passing through locked gates and ignoring 'no trespassing' signs”) in order to make his photograph, but he apparently contended that the fruits of his trespass – the pretty photo – is an unrelated matter, and thus the photo is his to do with what he wants. The bulk of the discussion on Carolyn's post is about the legal stretching that the property owners tried to employ – invoking copyright and “conversion” arguments – to sue the photographer into submission.

In the end, after much legalese, the court threw out those claims by the property owner (they were apparently too much of a legal stretch), and so without anything to stand on other than a claim of trespass, the property owners resolved the case in mediation. In the end, Ham is still allowed to sell the photo, but it seems he's out a bundle of cash in legal fees.

So, that's the story and if you're interested in the legal aspects of it, the details are perhaps interesting, but here's where I'm totally at a loss to understand. Carolyn ends her post with...

Ham has done much for photographers. If you'd like to support his efforts, purchase one of his wonderful prints from his website

WTF?

I realize that Carolyn is a lawyer – one who might stand to profit from an increase in this kind of illegal behavior – but wow, how was she raised? Didn't her parents teach her anything about right and wrong?

“Criminal” is perhaps too strong a word for the photographer, but if Carolyn's representation of the situation is accurate, Ham is a freakin' jerk for such explicit trespassing, and an even bigger one for not apologizing profusely when caught.

Regardless of what loopholes may or may not be in current law, the law should be such that one is sufficiently deterred from this kind of action, and if you trespass (or steal or intimidate or destroy or whatever), at a minimum you shouldn't be allowed to retain gains that are directly related to your illegal activities. I think this idea is already present in laws that prohibit serial murderers from selling movie rights to their story, for example.

The deterrent should be more than simply “give up your gains” because that's not much of a deterrent (that would simply mean “try not to get caught next time”). The law should be such that the moment Ham made his decision to trespass, not only was he choosing to risk having to give up any photos he ended up with, he was also risking jail time or a hefty financial penalty.

In the end, he got the penalty (one paid to lawyers instead of the government's general fund), and, for what it's worth, my personal contempt. Ham has “done much for photographers” all right, much damage. The world is already full of people who think everyone with a camera is a terrorist, a paparazzi, or a child molester, and now we have people like Ham and Wright only making it worse.

Sigh.

Carolyn's blog is interesting and I read everything she posts, but one does have to read with a grain of salt. She's made lawyer-like technical mistakes before, and she sometimes tends to come across as if it's okay to do anything you want so long as you have a camera.... but her post today just left my chin on the ground.