Where the hell am I?

For documentary purposes the location of your photo is important. This is especially true for Photographers Group projects. Subject like buildings and bridges have both a political location (road/municipality) and a coordinate location (latitude/longitude). For the Barns, Bridges and Buildings project, the file name needs to include the political location

POLITICAL LOCATION – Road and Municipality

Anyone who knows how to drive should be able to know how to determine what road they are on. I am sure you know how to do this using road signs, GPS and maps.

Determining township or borough is a little trickier. Postal addresses are misleading. Post offices are typically located in boroughs but deliver mail outside the borough in surrounding townships.

This is how you can determine the municipality.

Determine where your subject is located either by direct knowledge or finding it on a map. If you have Google Map on your cell phone you can “drop a pin” to show the mark the location by pressing on the screen for a few moments. A paddle will show up on the map where you pressed your finger.

After doing this look click “Save.” Save it as a “Starred place” and then you can find it later on your desktop using Google Map. You need a Google account to do this.

To find the pin you dropped log in to Google and go to Google map. Click the menu (the three horizontal lines) at the top left corner of the screen.
Scroll down and click “Your places”
Click Saved.
Then Click Starred and your should be able to find the location of the pin you dropped.

Here is how to determine in what township or borough your photo is located in Hunterdon County:

1- Go to https://gis.co.hunterdon.nj.us/HC_ParcelViewer.html

2-In the upper left corner you will see zoom buttons (+/-) and below them will be four little boxes. These boxes let you change the base map. Select “Streets.”

3-Zoom in and pan around until you find the general location of your photo and take note of the municipality.

COORDINATES AND GEOTAGGING

There are a couple of ways to determine the coordinates of your photo. Google Map, camera GPS, an online app at geoimgr.com, or using Lightroom.

GOOGLE MAP
If you have Google Map on your cell phone and and you can “drop a pin”and it will tell you the latitude and longitude.


CAMERA GPS
Some cameras have built in GPS which will record the coordinates for you and embed them in the file’s metadata.

ONLINE APPLICATION
You can also find the coordinates by geotagging your photo using Lightroom or the online application at https://tool.geoimgr.com/. Upload your photo then pan and zoom around the map until you find the location and click on the map. Then click the blue button that says “Write EXIF tags” and your coordinates will appear. Click Download to save a Geotagged copy of the file with coordinates embedded in the metadata.

LIGHTROOM
If you use Lightroom you can use the MAP module to determine coordinates of your photo and to embed these coordinates in the metadata of your photo.

Load your photo into Lightroom as usual. Switch to the MAP module and find the location of your site on the aerial photo. When you find it, drag your photo to that spot. A yellow paddle will appear and the coordinates will be show in the metadata in the right panel.

The final step is to export a copy of your photo. The exported file will be geotagged and others will be able to determine the location of your subject.

Here is a video on geotagging: GEOTAGGING PHOTOS

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