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Comment by mtw | Hacker News Reader

A nice theoretical exercise but I slightly disagree with the rationale. In a popular area, an artist could have a different view from others. Perhaps it's the late-morning mist, another person in the view, sun rays at a different time, or maybe a new lens and different settings that lets you view the space in a totally different perspective.

Also taking a picture in a new or unpopular area doesn't make it more worthy than other pictures. Perhaps the place is unappealing and bland.

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And dramatically underestimates the need for additive photography. Ferguson riots, Baltimore riots, New York during and after 9/11, etc., would all be blocked out by this.

Moreover, my vanity photos would almost certainly be excluded. I'm certainly not the first guy to take a photo of Haleiwa during the Triple Crown of surfing, but my photo is likely the only one that has me in them, and that, along with the memories that photo will evoke, are definitely not things I want to exclude from my life.

Understanding that this is probably a political statement (of which I'm not entirely clear yet), it's certainly a damned disturbing one.

    > this is probably a political statement (of which I'm
    > not entirely clear yet)

From the article:

    <title>... disobedient

    > The European Parliament recently voted against a
    > controversial proposal that threatened to restrict
    > the photography of copyrighted buildings and
    > sculptures from public places.

    > The camera could be funded or subsidized by public
    > and private sector institutions with an interest in
    > regulating photography in certain places.

Thanks. I mean, I see that, I'm just not entirely sure how this is a response to it. Probably I'm just missing the link between copyright and 'already photographed', and/or whether or not that itself is a part of the commentary, or if it is just an implementation detail.

I was about to comment the above too. The world isn't static. This also discounts time of year shots, as fall trees vs snow covered hills vs spring blooms make a world of difference too (they do mention that geo-tagging isn't the only way).

Despite the entry point for photography as art being relatively low, this also discredits the idea that there are good and bad photography and the defining factor is rarity.

Agree. I solve this problem not with technological barriers, but by going to places that tourists don't go. In fact I often look at the Lonely Planet maps, cross off everything mentioned, and then go to the remaining parts of the map, assuming it's a safe area.

And this camera do not allows you to use two really popular professional techniques when working in crowed monuments: stacking and timelapse.

thanks I was going to make a similar comment. Additionally it's like I should pay for a product that will let me know if I am taking a photo of popular tourist destination? i get that it tries to solve a problem of too many photos of the same thing but there is 0 benefit to individual users of it, and they're expected to pay for it.

thinking about it more, it would be far more useful if it gave you a counter of photos taken of current place at any given light level (this should give a rough time series). That way it would provide metadata instead of a binary shut off valve. still not sure how it would handle slightly different angles and zoom.

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