Photos as tags

It’s amazing how an image can transport us to a different time and place. Old thoughts and memories are brought back just by looking through old photo albums, things that were once forgotten come flooding back. Looking through vacation photos can take you back to that warm beach, photos of old friends can remind you of old jokes, lost relationships. Photos are a visual trigger for these memories and thoughts.

Much in the same way that people use their own [tag]folksonomies[/tag], developing their own cloud / pool of tags to help add personal meaning to a link or article of information. People take photos, capturing a moment in time; using photos to add personal meaning to a point in the past, to ‘[tag]tag[/tag]‘ a moment in time and provide a visual marker. Provoking memories and transporting them back to that time, their mindset and what they were thinking.

In this was the way people organise and classify their thoughts elevate mere words and images to a point were they become emblematic, inextricably linked to a thing, a place, a person, event or idea. This is part of what I hope to explore with my major project; the links between photos, words, and ideas. The way people use [tag]DCS[/tag]s to add this extra level of personal meaning and value, and whether or not this adds value to the article for society as a whole, or just the individual.