Geograph - photograph every grid square

Keeping the Geograph website operational requires many people to donate their time or resources, and we want to be sure that the website is a resource free from commercial exploitation in future. To that end, the site software is available for re-use under the terms of the GNU Public Licence (GPL).

Also, we require all submitters to adopt a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence on their photographic submissions.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

Under this licence the photographer keeps the copyright on their images but grants the right to anyone to copy and/or distribute and/or modify the image and its attached metadata, provided they give credit. This right to reuse the image may include someone printing and selling the image on Ebay or elsewhere.

On submission, contributors licence their images at one or more specific sizes. Once a licence is granted it is irrevocable, as that image and licence may legally have been downloaded and used elsewhere.

In a nutshell, we wanted to build a true community project that won't leave a nasty taste in the mouth by getting sold for shedloads of cash and taken away from the people who contributed. These licence terms ensure that the site and content can never be "taken away" from you. See Freedom - The Geograph Manifesto http://www.geograph.org.uk/help/freedom



(Developer? http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/Geograph-for-Developers )

The answers given by Barry have been on the site for a long time, and they form the basis of what the site is about. Yet many good Geographs do not fulfil any of those criteria, and two are almost contradictory (at close up and being useful in interpreting a map).

It is important to realise that the site has grown way beyond what was first envisaged, and so the site's definition of Geography is now very wide, incorporating a lot of social history, ecology, geology and other allied subjects. This is encouraged but it means that the definition of a Geograph has become broader.

So a Geograph is any photograph, accurately geoloacted, that depicts the Geography of a square, or any aspect of the Geography of the square, shown in some form of context. A description is useful and encouraged, especially for photographs in which the geography is not obvious, but it is not essential.

Some other photographs are still extremely welcome and contain useful geographical information but may not be classified as Geographs*, and listed below:

Firstly, it was felt that it was very important that every square should be actually visited and not just 'view-bagged' from a distance. So, Geographs must be taken within the square. Nevertheless, certain views can only be seen from outside a square. These cross-grid shots are classified as "Cross Grid".

Secondly, some photographs don't have much context. These are usually details of large objects, but they may just be very small objects or they could be large objects that are not shown completely. Most mods would agree that the smaller the object the more context that is needed to make it a Geograph. These close-ups are classified as "Close Look"*. The largest objects that tend to be classed as shown in close-up or incompletely are buildings. Most mods believe that to be a Geograph a building photograph should the whole building or some context, although some mods would prefer both.

Thirdly, indoor shots are classified as "Inside". They can add useful information, but indoors, being an entirely human environment, is on the fringe of the site's definition. Only public indoor areas are acceptable.

Fourthly, shots taken from the air are classified as "Aerial". They are often useful, but they approach the subject of Geography in a different way than was originally envisaged.

Finally some shots are classified as "Extra" these include:
Silhouettes
Sunsets and sunrises
Cloudscapes, sky, auroras, celestial bodies etc
Things in the sky such as birds, aircraft, balloons etc.
Things on the sea that are not permanently fixed to the sea bed for extended periods of time such as boats, windsurfers, inflatables


*(From 11 May 2016 the Supplemental Classification is replaced by Image Type Tags:
see http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/Image-Type-Tags-update ).

This Is Not A Photography Site
Highlighting that geograph is not primarily about 'artistic' photography, preferring to concentrate on documenting the land, warts and all. Sometimes that means excellent photography, sometimes not - but first and foremost we welcome contributions from photographers whatever the skill level.

Geograph runs on a pretty large database, and the load is spread over several servers. That means things do occasionally go wrong, and they aren't always consistent.

If a page doesn't display properly, try loading it again (by pressing F5) _once_. If that doesn't work, navigate away from the page, clear your cache (under privacy settings in most browsers) and try again. Or just wait a while, most of the time things get cleared up automatically given time.

If you think something is permanently wrong, post a bug report on the forum http://www.geograph.org.uk/discuss/index.php?&action=vtopic&forum=4 . Remember to say which page is affected (best paste in its address), which browser and version, and which operating system and version you use.

If something is wrong about the _content_ of a page (description text, photo location etc.), use the 'suggest an update' link under the main picture to contact the contributor and moderators.

Geograph publishes photos that illustrate the geography of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.

For the first six years and 2 million images, Geograph contributors have been required to choose a primary geographical category for each of their images. They could either select one from a list or create a new one if what they wanted didn't exist. Some contributors limited themselves to a small number of very general categories (moorland, lake, buildings...) while others preferred to create much more detailed, often unique, categories (church (Roman Catholic) (former), artificial fish farming pool, bat hibernaculum...). The list grew to an unwieldy 9,000 categories, mostly of detailed photograph subjects. The primary geographical categories – which offered a broad-brush way of organising the archive – had got lost.

The system showed its limitations as the archive grew. For example, in this subject-rich photo http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1579473 the short title and description and single category (Watercourse) mean that other features go unrecorded, so will not be picked up in a search. Similarly in http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/716196 the category selected was Lake. A search on Lake would return over 25,000 images – not very useful. The interesting detail in the description would only be found by a very specific search. In a third example http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/514710 the category Artificial fish farming pool is unique, although the image would be found by a search for Fish farm. All these images would of course be seen in browsing their respective gridsquares. Photos with the minimum information will tend to be invisible to searches because searches are text-based. The solution is to enable contributors to choose multiple categories – tags – and one or more primary geographical categories – geographical context - that describe the content of the photo.

Of course, submitter knows best. The new system asks submitters to choose at least one geographical context from a fixed list of 46 very general options. If several of them apply, all their boxes can be ticked. At the same time, detail is encouraged with free-form tags which would previously have cluttered up the category list, and which can now be put to good use in narrowing down searches. So, geographical context and tags together should do all that categories used to, but without their limitations. In the Askern example several context boxes could be ticked: Lake, Village, Open space, Leisure; possibly Mining. From these alone a picture forms in the mind. Tags would fill in details of the birds, the tree, and the vanished historical features. The more information that can be attached to a photo the greater its value to the archive.

[edited by Robin Stott]

We use county information to aid recognition of place names on photo pages and other areas of the site, like helping to disambiguate search terms (e.g. a search for "Gillingham")

For Ireland, it's simple; we just use the traditional counties. Great Britain isn't so easy, which has seen three major county structures;

Ceremonial counties (sometimes known as Geographic)
These were introduced in 1974 primarily as a way to define areas for county councils. Although these are possibly what most people recognize as counties, a suitable dataset to allow us to use these counties would be too costly for us to bear. So we must compromise a little...

Administrative counties (also known as district/unitary authorities)
These are the modern 'counties' in use by the current government (since 1997). This is the best dataset we have available, so we display it prominently in the gazetteer line on photo pages. It is also useful for identifying the council responsible for the area. However for large towns/cities, for example Sheffield, which are in their own authority (i.e. the 'county' of Sheffield), we attempt to be clever and display the historic county instead.

Historic counties
These are the counties that have evolved over many hundreds of years and were in active use until 1974. We use this data as a fallback - where we've opted to display the administrative country on a photo page, you can often find the historic county by hovering over this title.

For a more in depth explanation, see http://www.abcounties.co.uk/ . (However beware that the site doesn't use the exact same terms.)

To see lists of counties in each structure see the Explore Section.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/explore/#counties

Not all submissions have EXIF details attached, some image manipulation software strips the EXIF unless you ask it not too. Some contributors deliberately strip the EXIF as an easy fix to portrait images appearing sideways on the site.
Where it exists you can use a browser add-on to view the EXIF or download the photo (not the smallest version when larger ones are available - the next size up will have it). In Windows right-click on the photo in question and select 'Properties' then 'Details'. On macOS, open the photo in Preview, click on 'Tools' up in the menu bar at the top then select 'Show Inspector' and click on the 'Exif' tab. In Irfanview use the 'Image information' button.

The Hamsters! Each time the page loads 5 random images are selected, from the last 250 photos moderated.

(For the hamster reference see this http://www.nearby.org.uk/geograph/answers/faq.php?q=geographism )

Anyone can suggest images for inclusion in the Gallery. See link top right on any Gallery page. The gallery is also fed from 'thumbs up' clicks and from forum threads.
Please take the time to vote on images.

[PERSONAL OPINION OF THE AUTHOR] Geograph takes pride in taking care about accuracy of location and information content. We like to think that this sets us apart from many other picture sites on the internet.

Whether it is one of your own pictures or someone else's, if you think something's wrong, please use the 'change image details' or 'suggest update' link under the main picture. This gives you access to a form where you can amend any of the details (subject and camera position, view direction, title, description etc). After making your changes, leave a short explanation in the box at the end of the form.

Changes to your own images will update immediately. The only exception are changes to the subject grid square, which are moderated; this will typically take a day or so.

If you suggest changes to someone else's pictures, they will be alerted and have an opportunity to reply. Ideally, you should work with the original contributor to come to a consensus. Moderators will try to assist with that. Generally, accuracy is taken very seriously, but if additional information is presented, it is the photo contributor's prerogative to decide whether to accept it.

When making a suggestion, please bear in mind that you are communicating with the original author, not primarily with Geograph. Explain your changes in a friendly and civil manner, and supply sources to verify your point. Avoid making many suggestions to the same contributor at the same time.

Suggestions which are mainly concerned with geograph/supplemental* classification or seek to move positions by small amounts within the stated precision (often 100m) are regarded as a waste of time by many and can cause aggravation out of proportion with their usefulness.

* (From 11 May 2016 the Supplemental Classification is replaced by Image Type Tags:
see http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/Image-Type-Tags ).

The community showcase http://www.geograph.org.uk/results/200 has been used to show pictures that have cropped up in site features other than their picture pages themselves. The source (or combination of sources) has been different at different times and is likely to change as new features are being developed. As an example, images shown in busy forum threads may end up in the community showcase.

(this is referring the 'at most one image from each [...]' option in the 'Advanced Search' function)

The software that drives our search can only at this time return one image from a particular 'group', such as grid square or month. So at this time, can't select multiple images per group.

Also note there is no control over which image is selected, at the moment it's pretty much chosen at random.


Can use the 'Image Browser' (just called 'Browser' in the links on the side) - in the 'Grouped' Mode, can now select multiple images per group. E.g. can get it to show say 4 images per square.
That has much more controls for configuring the sampling.

Running this site costs money, particularly over time as the storage requirements are quite large. Whilst those costs were initially met by generous sponsorship from the Ordnance Survey, more recently the site has been dependent upon donations. Granting commercial use allows anyone who runs the archive in the distant future to explore other options for generating funds, such as sales of montage posters.

Granting everyone those same rights actually protects the site community from exploitation), but do bear in mind that we only retain a screen-quality version of your image, and that under the terms of the Creative Commons Licence, you must be credited for any use of your image.

http://www.geograph.org.uk/help/freedom

Please see the article http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/Shared-Descriptions

The easiest place from which to add shared descriptions to a few recently submitted images (or check if you have attached it to all you intended) is your Recent Uploads page http://www.geograph.org.uk/submissions.php (link in side bar).
The Shared Descriptions tab below the description box shows how many shared descriptions are attached to an image. Click it to check which they are, create a new shared description or attach one already created.
There is a bulk attach tool available to facilitate the adding of a shared description to up to 50 images at a time (see article).
Note you can only add shared descriptions to your own images but are free to contact other contributors to alert them to the existence of a shared description relevant to their photo which they may wish to add.

(From 11 May 2016 the Supplemental Classification is replaced by Image Type Tags:
see http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/Image-Type-Tags ).

A. Click on your image to open it.
B. Look for the yellow framed exclamation mark under the photo frame (right side)
- "Change image details" and click on here
C. Scroll down until you come to the last blank text box. It has the words "Please describe what's
wrong..." above it.
D. write your thoughts in the box, the more detail the better
E. select the second tick box underneath "Bring the issue to the ..."
F. Click on Submit Changes.

This will raise what is known as a ticket which other moderators in addition to the original moderator who gave the classification you are unsure of, can read. They are likely to comment (some with more detail than others) and you will receive email notification of this. A decision is usually reached within a week. The time frame is to allow as many moderators as possible to read your comments and add their own. Some moderators only volunteer their time at weekends or may just be away.

[the beginnings of an answer]

Put simply, photographs are made of light. In good light, today's digital cameras make it difficult to take a technically poor photo. Sometimes, though, photos unavoidably come out dark or grey because the subject was in shadow, or it was getting late; worst of all, a cloud appeared overhead and followed you round while the distant landscape was bathed in sunshine. There are ways of making these photos reveal their subjects better.

This isn't a highly technical answer. It refers to features of commonly-used image editing or image enhancement software.

[to be continued]

You can switch to version 2 of the submission procedure http://www.geograph.org.uk/submit2.php , which has all four steps on one page in collapsible boxes. To open and close the boxes, click on their header bar. You can begin filling in the boxes while your picture is uploading, although a few options such as tags only become available once the upload is finished.

Version 2 becomes available once you're familiar with the kind of information needed for a submission to Geograph, having uploaded a few pictures using the standard method.

Instead of switching each time, you can set your preferred submission method in your profile http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile.php?edit=1 .

Once you have pressed the "I agree" button your picture is in the system and subject to the Creative Commons Licence.

If the picture has not yet been moderated, you can requested for the image to be rejected, and you will be asked to give a reason. To "self moderate" in this way you click on the "Change Image Details" link under the picture: you should see an icon for "reject".

Once the picture has been moderated and accepted you will probably need to give a very good reason for the image to be removed from display. Images may be removed from display if they were taken illegally, or, for example if a landowner objects to a picture taken from a place without public access. This process of removing from display is sometimes referred to as "vaulting" as a copy of the picture remains in the "vault": a file storage area.

See also "I have licensed an image larger than I intended, can I remove it?" http://www.geograph.org.uk/faq3.php#93

The idea is that you specify at least one 'top' (or 'geographical context') tag. These are about 40 broad classes describing the main aspect of the subject at the time the image was taken. You can add additional top tags if you like, depending on what surrounds your main subject. The top tags are shown in the tagging box if the radiobutton "context list" is selected.

In addition to the top tags, you can highlight detail that you feel is important. For that purpose, free-form tags are also available as an option. You can pick the most salient words from your description or any others that you would like your image to be found by if someone uses the word as a search term.

In addition you can use prefixed tags for collections of special interest: A railway enthusiast might create a prefix 'locomotive:' and use it to tag the different engines in their pictures. Or someone interested in churches could use a 'denomination:' tag to indicate which particular community uses the place of worship shown. You can also use existing prefixes, e.g. 'place:' or 'near:' to indicate which town something is in or near to. Have a look at what prefixes and tags others have already created: http://www.geograph.org.uk/tags/ . However, there is no need to restrict yourself in any way to that list. Prefixes are best used wherever it is likely that there will be other examples of your subject (church, locomotive...) with a slightly different attribute (Methodist, Diesel...).

As far as tags are concerned, chaotic growth is encouraged - the top tags are meant to counterbalance that!

Geograph is primarily for documentary photographs, not works of art. If your photos clearly show the subject, are well-lit, straightened-up, in focus and if possible visually appealing, you're doing fine. In the Collections area of the site there are many examples: see any of the 'Stellar examples' in Themed topics and illustrations of Geographical context at http://www.geograph.org.uk/tags/primary.php

Light
Generally speaking, sunshine gives best results, but time of day and time of year impart their own qualities to a photo. In bright summer light in the middle of the day, subjects are unavoidably top-lit, often reflective, while shadows are short, intense and below the subject. In the early morning and from late afternoon the sun is lower in the sky, subjects may be side-lit, the light is less harsh and shadows may be attractively long, revealing the form of objects they lie across. Similar conditions prevail in the middle of the day in the winter months. Photographing into the light is not recommended. 'Contre-jour' effects are expressive but may not convey much geographical information. Sometimes, however, you should ignore advice such as this and just respond to the subject and the conditions. For very bright surroundings such as snow, beaches and expanses of rock or concrete, consult your user guide.

Shadow
Subjects and scenes in shadow may sometimes have to be photographed "ready or not". The sun goes in or clouds merge. Pointing the camera more towards the ground will make auto-exposure adjust for a darker subject. If you prefer more control you can change the camera settings: look in your user guide for topics such as 'ISO speed', 'Metering mode' and 'Exposure compensation'. There may be less control with a camera phone: photos taken in poor light are likely to be dark or dull. To salvage something from a disappointing photo, see the answer to the question 'How can I improve a photo?' On the other hand dull days provide opportunities for photographing other subjects, such as details. Exploit the 'flat' light with zoom shots of distant subjects.

Night photography
Photographs taken at night are often classified as supplementals. That is fine; they can reveal geographic and cultural realities not evident during the day. There may be multiple light sources. Again, consult your camera's user guide. Experiment — and stay safe.

edited by Robin Stott

You can use multi-submit as your submission procedure http://www.geograph.org.uk/submit-multi.php , which allows you to upload up to 20 images in one go by dragging them into tab A. You can upload multiple batches of images using this procedure. Once all your uploads are finished, switch to either of the two 'B' tabs, depending on whether you prefer the remaining three steps of the submission process (locate, describe, license) on separate pages (version 1) or on a single page per picture (version 2). In tab B, select one image at a time and complete the submission process as usual. You've got a week to fill in the details and license your images before they disappear from multi-submit.

Instead of switching each time, you can set your preferred submission method in your profile http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile.php?edit=1 .

Actually I like Photoshop. It IS expensive, but you can purchase cheaper versions of it which are perfectly capable. It does take a little time to learn, but if you can master the keyboard shortcuts it helps a lot. It really can do everything - from HDR to 3d painting.
There are loads of Image editing applications, including the free one GIMP. Its personal preference. GIMP is very capable, but I'm not personally keen on the interface, even if it is a bit like Photoshop. It also runs on Linux.
In windows, its useful to have the application set up so that a right click on the image will launch the application, or open the image in it.

Most GPS receivers allow you to change the datum and display format to OSGB36 and British National Grid, the convention used by the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain. If you're using a GPS built into a mobile phone, this may not be possible, and your coordinates will always be in WGS84 lat/lon format. If you also use your GPS phone to take your geographs, it should store the positions in the GeoExif header, which Geograph should interpret correctly as camera position (via the Geotagged Image option).

Otherwise, you can use the map part of the submission routine ('locate/find on map') and enter your lat/lon coordinates in the format the 'Search' function, in decimal degrees like 56.45657,-4.54675 . This will look up the grid reference for the location and insert it as _subject_ position into the submission dialogue. You may have to adjust this unless the subject was right in front of you.

Alternatively, there is a conversion tool here on Geograph Tools http://www.nearby.org.uk/coord.cgi?f=conv from which you can copy and paste. Or one built into geograph at https://www.geograph.org.uk/latlong.php

(Question asked by Roga and answered by barryhunter, oasthouse and DHL on the forum http://www.geograph.org.uk/discuss/index.php?&action=vthread&forum=18&topic=13483&dontcount=1&page=0#1
Later updated, as conversion tools have changed over time))

Certainly - the points system is there to encourage people to make that extra effort to capture squares we don't have photos for yet, but we welcome additional images, perhaps showing a different subject, or a different time of year. You could be gaining yourself a personal point too.

Everyone sees things differently - feel free to give us your take on any square. Some squares have been done in considerable detail, helping to more fully document and add depth to a square. In particular, watch out for things others may have missed - the coverage maps can help with this.

Long term, multiple images taken at different times, even of the same subject, help to document change or the lack thereof.

TPoint or 'Time-gap Point' is a new kind of point. A contributor can gain a TPoint by submitting a contemporary photo to a square that hasn't had a photo for 5 years. The aim is to increase the date range of available photos per square.

Squares available for a recent photo are shown in orange on the Recent Only coverage map,
http://www.geograph.org.uk/map/?recent=1

or purple dots on the 'TPoint Availability' layer on the Draggable OS map.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/mapper/?lat=650000&lon=350000&zoom=0&layers=BFFTFF&recent=1

Also can get listings of squares via this page
http://www.geograph.org.uk/squares.php?distance=5&gridref=SH5050&type=norecent
(change the grid-reference in the box to your area of interest)

· Read more about the various points on the Statistics FAQ
http://www.geograph.org.uk/help/stats_faq

No, T-points are only awarded to Geographs. However, if an image which qualified for a T-point is later reclassified as 'cross grid' (e.g. photographer position added or moved) it is likely to retain its T-point for some time. Up-dating of T-points (an infrequent process) is long over-due.

In general you will only get a point the first time you visit a grid square, and your photo is moderated as a "geograph". You may also get extra points if you are one of the first 4 people to visit the square. Subsequent photos in the same square will not get you any points, photos classified as "supplemental" will not get you any points.

(From 11 May 2016 the Supplemental Classification is replaced by Image Type Tags:
see http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/Image-Type-Tags ).

Tpoints work slightly differently to the above: you get a Tpoint if you submit a geograph which has a time difference of 5 years (before or after) compared to other geographs in the grid square: So with Tpoints it may be possible to get subsequent points for the same grid square.

Yes, there is! And also for many other sorts of time series analysis you may be interested in: http://www.geograph.org.uk/statistics/overtime.php .

You've got the choice of analysing data for Geograph as a whole or just for yourself.

You can download the table in comma-separated value format for further analysis and plotting in external programs.


(Inspired by a question asked on the forum http://www.geograph.org.uk/discuss/index.php?&action=vthread&forum=18&topic=13062&dontcount=1&page=0#1 by Anthony V and answered by barryhunter.)

Sometimes pictures get relocated if they have been uploaded to the wrong grid square by mistake. This is often the case with images from the very early days of Geograph, when there was no or only scanned out-of-copyright mapping available.

Very occasionally, a (first) Geograph gets reclassified as a supplemental image* if there had been a clear error in the original classification.

Also rarely, images are withdrawn or vaulted for a long period because they weren't taken from a place with public access and the land owner has complained.

In all these cases, the next uploaded geograph (if any) will take the point, and if that was yours, then you'll find a miraculous extra point on your profile.

*From 11 May 2016 the Supplemental Classification is replaced by Image Type Tags:
see http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/Image-Type-Tags

Technically it's more a hit counter, than a visitor counter. Just counts the number of times the page is rendered. Note that stats shown on the 'Collections' page are subject to some delay (on the order of hours), due to caching, and updating indexes.

Any post can be edited anytime in the 24 hours after it posted.

If its in a "Themed Topic", or a "Gallery" then it can be edited indefinitly.

Only the original author can edit their posts.

Just click "Edit" against the post in question.

If you created the topic, can edit the first post to rename the thread/topic.

Members of Geograph can (if you aren't yet, sign up by clicking the 'register link' top right on any page). Go to the forum ('Discussions' in the sidebar menu) and add any pictures you'd like to see in all their glory on the front page for one day only to this thread: http://www.geograph.org.uk/discuss/index.php?&action=vthread&forum=2&topic=17652 . They will then be added to the list from which the daily picture is picked. If you'd like to suggest a picture for a specific day, please say so - there's no guarantee though, as the day may already have a picture assigned to it. You can post a small selection of your own pictures, but it is nice to highlight other peoples efforts as well where you come across them.

There is one technical limitation to bear in mind: The front page picture has to fit in a landscape frame due to the page layout. If it isn't landscape format, it'll be cropped and the central section used. Sometimes that can work, but generally it's best to pick landscape formats in the first place.