The geology between the coast and the island city is really interesting. It almost looks glacially carved, but I seriously doubt the glaciers made it that far south.

Yes. I would have barred you from the competition, but I thought that itself would be too big a clue. It's a lovely bridge, I have a couple more that are pretty interesting. I only took drive by shots--actually, I have to credit my girlfriend for this one as I was driving and she's a more talented and experienced photographer than I am. Plus, she was on that side of the car.

That's quite a compliment for your girlfriend, because you are no slouch in the photography department.

Thank you, :). But seriously, she *can* drive, it was her car after all.

(eta, funny little story... actually. Ima axe her first ... yeah. brb)

It's the Astoria-Megler Bridge. It crosses the Columbia River between Astoria, OR and Point Ellice in Washington.

I got there w/a Google Image search, using the search term 'steel bridge Washington state'.

Correct!

This second shot was taken a minute after the first one. It is a BIG RIVER.

Attachment 34823

By the way... I'm glad you noted your method for answering this. I'd had the mistaken notion that Google was off limits, especially Google Image search....

I think the picture search version of GIS is off limits. But I think searching for a phrase is fair. Otherwise how are you going to do it?

Reconcile these please?

Actually, I was stuck with your question too, hoping I'd just.. know, I'd just recognize the place. If not GIS, then what? "Fair" is what we decide is fair, of course; it's just a game. I knew Lamplighter would have an advantage, and I was right. I dunno. Text searching ok, image searching not ok? Does that sound right?

Google has a new image search where you can throw a picture's URL into the GIS, and it actually searches for similar images. I think that's cheating. But if you are smart enough to know how to search for images while using descriptive words, then I think that's fair. My picture a few posts back could be searched for with "jungle island city" or something like that.

Otherwise is really is impossible. Either you know it, or you don't.

Well, it can't be much fun if you have to have been to the place to identify it. Kinda leaves out, pretty much everyone who hasn't been there. In my mind, cheating would be using a TinEye-type search, this includes the new-ish Google image search thing where you drag the actual picture to the search bar, which then performs a TinEye-type search.

It'd get awfully slow, and awfully boring, awfully fast if we were to go with first-person knowledge only. Think about it: Say Grynch posts a Where Is It? pic, from Switzerland. Unless it's a VERY, VERY famous subject, virtually no one outside of a very few world travelers will get it.

What he said.

Ok, thanks guys!

This how I do it:

1. Study the picture in question for anything specific to the subject/area. A sign, a peculiarity of any kind. Something that you wouldn't find just any/everywhere.

2. Go to Google Images.

3. Type words into the search box. As I said earlier, for V's pic I typed "steel bridge Washington state", (I first typed "steel girder bridge Washington", but that didn't do the trick for me) without the quotation marks, and just drilled down the results til I found one that was similar. I then clicked the link for that image, and, after finding some sort of identifying info, double-checked it against Wikipedia.

4. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

It looks like someone bent your bridge.