Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Is it just me or do you smell smoke?

I'm starting to think that the only time I get around to posting these days is when something irritates me or when something is burning down. What can I say, I guess I get easily distracted... oooh look something shiny.

As with everyone in Southern California (or perhaps the country) I have been a bit focused on the fires over the last few days. Nothing is burning near me so all I am really suffering from is itchy eyes from the smoke in the air and sore thumbs from constant texting to various friends in the truly affected areas. Poor me.

I did start a group over on Flickr a few days ago to try to start aggregating the many pictures that were coming in from all over the area. If you have a second, you really ought to check it out. Some of the pictures these people are taking are amazing. You will find the group here.



I have stumbed across something interesting over the course of running the group, though. Over the last few days, I've done a lot of searching for fire pictures to encourage people to post them to the group and I have been noticing the saddest phenomenon.

I would come across a bunch of pictures of people's random things...a box of DVDs, a chair, a child's bedroom...all tagged with the word fire so they would pop up in my search.

It wasn't until yesterday that I finally figured out what it was. People were quickly taking pictures to inventory their houses for insurance purposes and then uploading them to Flickr before they evacuate. Some were even tagging them as such.

I just have the saddest image of somebody scared walking around their house taking pictures wondering if the images will be all they have left once they leave.

It's also a really interesting reflection of how technology changes how we do everything...to the point that people even turn to it instinctually during times of panic and great stress.

I won't link directly to any of these as it felt too personal to even look at them once I realized what they were...but I'm sure you can find them if you try.