Quotes
“Until 2000, the U.S. government degraded GPS signals using something called Selective Availability (SA). SA allowed the U.S. and its allies to use special GPS receivers to get very accurate location information while preventing civilian GPS receivers from having as much precision. In May 2000, SA was officially turned off (mostly because the U.S. government developed a way to degrade the accuracy of GPS to specific geographic regions). Suddenly, like magic, civilian receivers that formerly were accurate only to about 300 feet because accurate to 30 feet. This new level of accuracy offered some interesting, creative possibilities.” McNamara, Joel. Geocaching for Dummies. 1st ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2004. p. 10-11. Print.
“You undertake an educational task to learn something about the Earth. So, the treasure, if you like, is the place that you visit, rather than it being the container. There is no logbook you sign, but by undertaking an educational task related to the earth science of the site, you actually prove that you have been there to log your site. I feel that the draw in Earthcaching is that people really want to learn something about the Earth, and they like to be taken to places where they may have passed by many, many times but they never really understood what was there. An Earthcache can take them there on their own time and in their own pace and they can learn something interesting about their environment.” -Gary Lewis, Director of Education for the Geological Society of America "Geocaching.com Presents - Earthcaching." Video. 2011. Web. 15 Sep 2011.
Bibliography
Caldwell, Dave. "Modern Treasure Hunts for the Whole Family." New York Times. 09 December 2010. Web. 15 Sep. 2011.
In Caldwell’s New York Times article, he explores the relatively newly developed hobby called geocaching. A mother and son duo drove to a cache near their home in Mamroneck, New York, using Google maps on their iPad. As they followed the GPS coordinates, they soon found themselves in an 18th century graveyard, much to their surprise. To their astonishment, this location was yards from the parking lot of a suburban shopping center that they had visited countless times. In a separate instance, geocaching led them to a bird sanctuary with “egrets, roaming deer and a panorama of Long Island Sound” (Caldwell 1). The mother admitted to Caldwell, “we never would have found the place if it weren’t for geocaching”. The budget-friendly adventure gives families a chance to explore their surroundings and environments without breaking the bank.
Summary
Over the summer I began to think of different methods of presenting my work. I started to become discouraged with the traditional ways of showcasing photography (whether it was hung on a wall, published in a book, or posted on a website). I felt that these options solidified photography as only a two-dimensional art form. When a friend of mine introduced me to geocaching, I immediately saw it as an alternative method of presenting work. In geocaching, coordinates are given and found with a GPS device. When one finds the specific location, they find a container with a logbook and often a small trinket which can be replaced by one geocacher to the next. What if a print was put into the container? What relationship could the environment of the geocache play in conjunction with the print itself? Through geocaching, ones photography may be seen as something more of a performance piece, rather than a passive observation. I’m interested to see how geocaching, or other alternative forms of presentation, may affect my work as a whole.The relationship between image content and external environment is of particular interest to me.
Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA6R5sL_UC4&feature=player_embedded
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