Visually Similar - Volume 5 of 5

Reverse image search as serendipity machine.

For an explanation of how this works, see "Visually Similar" - Volume 1.

This is my last "Visually Similar" and I would say this is my favorite collection of random images ever. The images really did just select themselves. I have really loved doing these and you can get my reasons why I'm ending this series at the end of the post. 

I was searching for the source of this photograph that I found over at Shameless Ocean:

And I found these:

Horses in my dreams:

The end.

"Visually Similar", in its current form, is an exercise in diminishing returns for a number of reasons:

  • It requires that Google doesn't definitively identify the image otherwise their algorithm switches to prioritizing the images of that photographer or model and is no longer weighted toward the inherent image qualities.
  • There is a lot of duplication when the images I've searched for are themselves visually similar to the images that I've previously searched for.
  • Colour works, but not so well - I might find four or five images in a set, if I'm lucky.
  • It only really works on images that aren't perfectly balanced, a professional studio shot, for example, is going to give you hundreds more really inane studio shots.

These are all reasons that I could use to justify the end of this series but the truth is that I really love finding images like this. I am pretty methodical in following good sources and tracking down artists that have moved me but there is something compelling in this randomness -  this isn't about my tastes at all, these images have this strange way of asserting themselves out of the thousands of images that surround them.

"Visually Similar" is only ending as a separate set of posts. While I'm still going to find things in the traditional way, I want the serendipitous nature of how these images are found to be folded into The Quiet Front. I can generally see what is coming but sometimes I think it's good not to know.

“Visually Similar” - Volume 4 of 5

Reverse image search as serendipity machine.

For an explanation of how this works, see "Visually Similar" Volume 1 of 5. I really love the last two sets of "Visually Similar" so I'm going to do them both with large thumbnails.

I was searching for a source for this:

And I found these:

     

     

And the timeless Christy Turlington:

"Visually Similar" - Volume 3 of 5

Reverse image search as serendipity machine.

For an explanation of how this works, see "Visually Similar" - Volume 1.

I was looking for the photographer of this image I found at shrbr:

And I found these:

          

          

          

          

          

          

South Africa has one of the most progressive constitutions in the world. A great idea, sometimes without the best execution but one that allows for the freedom of expression, without which this site would not exist. I don't take this lightly because the freedom of expression is not universally recognized and this site would never have existed in the country I grew up in. When I found Justice Edwin Cameron in this search, I knew he was in. His work revolves mostly around equality and HIV / AIDS but, as a constitutional judge, I see him as a guardian of my right to do and say whatever the hell I like.

"Visually Similar" - Volume 2 of 5

Reverse image search as serendipity machine.

For an explanation of how this works, see "Visually Similar" - Volume 1.

I was searching for a source for this:

And I found these:

        

        

        

        

        

        

        

In my world, this guy is pretty famous but I was still surprised when he pitched up: 

John runs apostrophe...9, a very classy tumblr. I've been a long time reader - highly recommended.

“Visually Similar” - Volume 1 of 5

I have thousands of images for which I have no source. I have either found them with no attribution or I have (unforgivingly) lost my original notes. Before posting these images, I put them through Google’s reverse image search so that I can, if possible, correctly attribute them and link back to the artist’s site. 
Google also suggests a large collection of images under the title “Visually Similar”, some are related and beautiful but there are also many more which are strangely unrelated to the original. “Visually Similar” is a little game I play where I roll through the collection of images which Google’s algorithms throw out and just pick things with no rhyme or reason.
(All thumbnails will take you to the original Google search URL for each image)
 
I started with this picture of Jacquetta Wheeler:

And found these:

        

        

        

        

        

        

Some of the stories behind the images are quite amazing:

"Private First Class Gurke was in a shallow two-man foxhole with a fellow Marine, a Browning Automatic Rifle-man (BAR-man), around dawn of 9 November, delivering a fierce stream of fire against the advancing Japanese in defense of a vital road block in the area near Empress Augusta Bay. Judging from the increased ferocity of the enemy grenade attack, that the enemy was determined to annihilate him and his buddy because of the fierce effective fire they were rendering, PFC Gurke roughly thrust his companion aside when a Japanese grenade landed in their foxhole and threw himself on the deadly missile. For his unswerving devotion to duty and uncommon valor in the face of the enemy, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor to PFC Gurke."

 

"Visually Similar" is very interesting to me but I'm only going to do a series of five, I'll give a brief explaination of why in the last of the series.

If I were to try and describe it would be this:

Reverse image search as serendipity machine.