I’ve been playing around with iPhoto’s geocoding lately. Geocoding photos is the process of embedding latitude/longitude information so that future generations can determine where exactly a photo was taken. I don’t have a GPS so I’ve been going through my 20,998 photos by hand. With less than 3,000 still to tag, I’m seeing light at the end of the tunnel

“Why are you going through all that pain?” some of you may be asking? Well, along with helping out my future biographers, it’s cool to be able to see my travels plotted on maps. See below for a snapshot of my travels to date:

Seeing this many pins on the map made me feel pretty cool until I zoomed out to see the entire earth:

Seeing all of the empty spaces I’d never visited (Asia and the southern hemisphere especially) made me feel awfully small.

If anyone is interested in geocoding, there is a pretty slick iPhone app called GeoLogTag that allows you to automate the process significantly. That or a stand-alone GPS can make the whole tagging process much easier. iPhoto, Picassa, and Flickr all support embedded latitude/longitude information for doing cool data visualizations like shown.