The photography ban during White House public tours has been lifted

During the presidency of Gerald R. Ford (1974–1977) photography by White House public tour visitors was banned and stayed that way for about forty years.

The ban on photography, according to White House historians, was put in place to due to a range of concerns. Those entrusted with maintaining the White House's historic artifacts, artwork and the White House itself were concerned with the damaging effects of flash photography at the time. Others were concerned that visitors constantly stopping to take photographs would disrupt White House tours and could allow some visitors to become separated from their tour group and stray from the tour route itself.

Identifying your travel photos when you return home - Part II

As discussed in Part I of this Photo Identification series, one of the most classic problems of the vacation photographer is identifying one's photographs after returning home. Often when you look at your photos weeks after making them, it can be difficult to remember where you took them, and what each image's subject is.

The low-tech identification methods discussed in Part I, such as written journals, marking maps with photo locations, and using identifier photographs work, but many photographers consider them too tedious and time consuming. There are some hi-tech identification methods which are automatic or close to it, but I caution anyone who thinks they are foolproof, to think again.

Each of these hi-tech methods involve GPS (global-positioning system) technology. GPS devices typically identify their position by longitude, latitude, altitude and compass heading, plus date and time.

Today, some digital cameras have built-in GPS units, some cameras are GPS ready, and other cameras can have GPS information added to their photos' exif data, but don't have the capability to embed the information directly themselves. It must be added later, via a computer.

Identifying your travel photos when you return home - Part I

It's the classic problem of the vacation traveler. After two weeks away, you begin to review your travel photos, a few days or weeks later, and you can't remember where you took many of them, and what the buildings and scenes in them are.

While traveling, you can ensure you will be able to identify your photographs through easy to use, inexpensive, low-tech techniques. While high-tech methods, can also help handle image identification, even these can sometimes get a needed boost from more down to earth methods.

High-tech identification methods, while great, can sometimes fail, so every photographer, even a casual vacation photographer, should be familiar with the low-tech, failsafe photo identification methods I discuss below. During my recent trip to the Baltic region of Europe, my GPS, attached to my DSLR, died in Stockholm. I reverted to the low-tech techniques, which worked beautifully for me.