Wednesday 11 August 2010

letterboxing

Mike Shaughnessy, of BoingBoing fame, shared his latest find, a collection of vintage colour photographs from Berlin/Verlagsanstalt fรผr Farbenfotographie of a European tour from 1906, as a Google Maps geocaching.   This is a more pleasant alternative to the debate over the invasive nature of Street View.
These pictures are amazing and it's quite remarkable to see what has weathered conflicts and upheavals, even considering how the last century represents in most cases only a small fraction of the lifetime of the sites.  Particularly interesting was this image of Kaysersberg in the Alsace region that H and I visited in the Spring.  The geocaching grafiti tag really was eye-catching, since we had just recently watched the Kevin Costner film Dragonfly, and the symbol.  There's a similar mysterious map-related cruciform symbol that played a significant part in the plot.