While upgrading my computer, I figured it was a good opportunity to start fresh with my browser bookmarks and get rid of the masses of links that I had that no longer went anywhere. Clean house, you know? Of course, there are still bookmarks that I need — things I look at every day or nearly every day — and I’m going through the process of deciding what to re-bookmark, and what to let go of.

John Nack’s Adobe-centric blog is a keeper and it was on his site that I discovered this post that led to the cool graphic posted above. What is it? It’s one of a series of maps on Eric Fischer’s Flicker page (this one is San Francisco) that shows where, in several cities around the world, locals take photographs (blue points) vs. where tourists take them (red points). The yellow points show where it can’t be determined whether it was a local or a tourist taking the photo. There’s an explanation of how the data was compiled on Eric’s page. It may not be 100% scientifically accurate but it’s a really interesting look at how cities cater to different populations. I could look at these things for hours.

Can this be a useful resource to a travel photographer? Possibly. It might show where there are some landmarks or scenic areas that only the locals seem to know about. On the other hand, a dense blue spot might just indicate where some guy lives that takes 30,000 photos of his cat each day. But, given enough data, you’d think some real trends would emerge that would cancel out the flukes. I just think they’re fun to look at.