PBase World Database Image Galleries

November 26, 2003 3:00 PM

A fun way to browse the planet. PBase is a popular online photo gallery service with several trick features. Using data from the image file headers and user profiles, PBase makes its large photo database browseable by camera used to make the shot (of interest if you're in the market for a digicam), and by country where the photo was taken. The latter provides some real armchair travel gems, including architectural hotspots in Qatar, an elephant orgy in Botswana, some regular guy's hiking tour of LOTR locations in NZ, the Tel Aviv Love Parade (NSFW), a Polish air-show, and a Namibian Wedding. I'll see you all at cocktail hour in New Caledonia!
posted by scarabic (6 comments total)

Uhh... those Botswana pics may also be NSFW if you happen to work with elephants.
posted by scarabic at 3:02 PM on November 26, 2003

Thanks for posting this...
posted by iamck at 8:57 PM on November 26, 2003

Hah. I got that LOTR guy beat by a mile; not only do I have the photo of myself at BagEnd, but I also have the Precious. And in addition to BagEnd, I took it to the spot in Mordor where Isildur cut it from Sauron's hand, Isengard, Lothlorien, Rivendell... Yes, I'm a dufus.
posted by ehintz at 9:08 PM on November 26, 2003

Nice one of the little rock hollow, ehintz. I think seeing that would give me chills.

It appears there are informational signs up at some of the LOTR shooting sites. Can you fill us in on what they say, who put them there, etc?
posted by scarabic at 9:41 PM on November 26, 2003

Most of them were pretty incognito actually. Rivendell is at a park in Upper Hutt (about 30min from downtown Wellington) and was the only site with a sign. Didn't really say much though, just had a couple pictures of the sets and a brief bit about how the scenes were done there. Finding the Mordor rock would've been impossible without a GPS; there's no markings at all, and all the rocks look the same. Likewise Isengard gardens; without the GPS and photos in the book I'd have obliviously walked right past it. If you find yourself in NZ, a copy of Ian Brodie's location guidebook and a GPS will get you to an awful lot of the locations.

Of course, this data is based on how it was in March and April of this year; the Kiwis have been picking up on the tourism possibilities since then so more of them may now be marked.
posted by ehintz at 1:49 AM on November 27, 2003

[this is good]
posted by plep at 4:45 AM on November 27, 2003