I’ve tried several methods of tagging my photographs, but none have been sustainable: too much work. I suspect that criterion will only be fully quashed with on-board tagging. Until then, more manual efforts are to be endured.
My first attempt at this was completely manual, and involved surveying maps for places I had been, determining the co-ordinates and then using a tool to plug those data into a photograph’s meta data. That lasted about 5 pictures.
Subsequently I found a program, HoudahGeo that included a map. With this tool, I was able to position pictures over the map, click whatever it was to be clicked and bam, the pictures were tagged. Much better, but still sufficiently intensive to be not scalable for large projects.
Later, I found a program for my iPhone, that allows one to capture way-points automatically, as you walk around (presumably taking pictures). HoudahGeo, it turns out, is able to read in such files of tags and match them against pictures and then tag them. This solved the last problem of my workflow, as it removed that remaining manually-intensive step. However, it introduced another problem. The way-point-capture program sucked; sucked power that is. Running the program would consume my battery in 5 hours or less. Not very practical. Also, it required internet access as the way-points are posted to a web site as they are captured. Nice, but some of the places a photographer goes is without internet. Thus this program was not always available for use.
This iPhone program allows one to capture way points manually, so the GPS isn’t running continuously sucking away precious battery power. The captured file is stored locally to the iPhone and subsequently e-mailed when the photo-shoot is complete. The file, attached to the e-mail, is then read into the software tool (HoudahGeo in my case) which merges the tags into the photographs. Seems to work quite well.
While the cost of 99 cents represents a larger proportion of my savings each day, I think it is worth the price.
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