Termination

As some of you will recall, in one of my other online lives I am a keen contributor to the Geograph photo-mapping project. I have taken photographs in 14,803 different squares - the British Isles being divided into over three hundred thousand of these squares which measure 1km by 1km.

On the Geograph home page, they declare that  the project has attracted 13,815 different contributors since its inception in December 2005. However, behind that figure there lurks another story.

I joined Geograph in 2009 which was the year I retired from full time teaching here in Sheffield. That connection is clearly not uncommon. As I read it, I would say that a substantial proportion of Geograph contributors are retired folk with time on their hands to roam about with their cameras. Of course, when someone retires the next big thing in their life will be death and when a Geograph contributor dies then he or she will cease contributing images. Crazy I know - but it's true!

What you find is this. A contributor will have been uploading new pictures on a weekly basis  for years and then all of a sudden their contributions stop. Okay they may have got bored with the whole thing or maybe they've had a debilitating stroke or maybe someone stole their camera or something like that but mostly the endings are down to death.

I wonder what my very last picture will be? Here I am sharing the last images of three previously busy Geograph contributors. This was the last picture of Dr Neil Clifton who submitted 16,509 photos between December 2005 and November 15th 2018. It was taken on Fleece Street in  Rochdale, Lancashire that same month:-

John Allan made many wonderful contributions - mostly of Scottish scenery between December 2005 and May 2021. This was his very last picture of the east beach at North Berwick:-

Kate Jewell contributed 7871 images to Geograph from its inception to May 7th 2020 though her last picture of a canal lock near Cotgrave, Nottinghamshire was in fact taken in the summer of 2006:-

And if you are wondering about the picture at the top of this blogpost. It is of Elliottholme Lodge near Bakewell, Derbyshire. I snapped it just last Friday. And if I fail to wake up in the morning, following the example of my brother Paul, it is this image that will be my last gift to Geograph and the world. My swan song.  Thank you and good night. (Sound of hooting, cheers and foot stomping)

from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/ERhrIKU