Memorial

I was interested by this picture in yesterday's Guardian, part of a memorial for Israel Ogunsola, fatally stabbed in east London last week. Interested by the inclusion of all kinds of other stuff besides flowers and candles, presumably reflecting the different customs of different traditions.

Next thought was that I generally have difficulty tracking down the originals of pictures on the Guardian web site so I would try Google image search with the not very good snap left taken by my old Lumia 650.

Its first pronouncement was not very helpful, that it had not found any other sizes of this image and that its best guess was waste. This was followed by a number of images of urban murals, and with their colour and texture mix, one could see why a computer algorithm might have matched them to my snap.

It then told me of five matching images, two from the Independent, two from Shutterstock and one from reference 2. This last being a website which I completely fail to understand, appearing to consist of very cryptic references to 50 recent news items, none of which correspond to this one. But there is what might well be the source of the picture used by the Guardian.

I then tried the Independent links given and failed to find the picture at all. But I did get unsolicited and noisy voice-over and music. Which does not encourage me to use this particular site.

Shutterstock one failed, but Shutterstock two turned up the goods, what was almost certainly the original image, with a rather larger field than that in the Guardian. Complete with an informative news item, but one which had no provenance.

'Flowers and tributes left for 18 year old Israel Ogunsola in Hackney, north east London, Britain, 06 April 2018. Ogunsola was stabbed to death 04 April while cycling to a friend's house in his neighbourhood. The London Metropolitan Police Service Scotland Yard chief Cressida Dick on 05 April 2018 announced new tactics to curb the surge in murders and knife crime in London. A new task force of 120 officers would focus on the most violent gang members and individuals to take them off London's streets. Thee have been 55 murders in London since the start of 2018. Violent crime is on the increase in the capital matching that of New York city'.

In which I have corrected a small number of typos.

All this, I suppose, is how news is going to be delivered in the brave new world which will come after the demise of print newspapers that we pay for.

But an impressive performance by Google Image, which in my experience had been better on arts than on news. Apart from wondering why it did not find the Guardian.

Reference 1: https://images.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl.

Reference 2: https://treasurereading.com/gangs-and-weapons-on-the-rise-on-london-streets-front-line-police-team-warns/.