faf_task.htm: Images searching (¯`·.¸(¯`·.¸ faf

~ Faf's task ~

				essays

(Courtesy of fravia's searchlore.org)

Searching an image without knowing its name

by Faf & Nemo

slightly edited by fravia+, published @ searchlores in March 2003

Faf's task
Can you find a famous old pic showing a mexican smiling, a cigar in his lips, in front of a firing squad.

I must admit that I could not find it.
faf

The only hot track so far:
"faux-monnayeur mexicain goguenard, fumant un dernier cigare avant d'être fusillé"

Must admit that I have been able to find anything I wanted until getting stuck on that one.

Any taker?
faf

Nemo's solution

Hi faf,

as you said you couldn't find it, I walked directly to usenet trying to know who is interested and in that way try to know who/where/what to search.

So here is my first attempt:

mexican smiling OR smile cigar "firing squad"

as I'm not seeing the most important phrase: "firing squad" I repeat it:

"firing squad" mexican smiling OR smile cigar "firing squad"

now ist better, because we see the important phrase, but the results are still disapointing... maybe we are asking to much... lets rephrase the query saying ist better to have smilling OR smille, this is easly done joining an *: smilling OR smille OR *

"firing squad" mexican smiling OR smile OR * cigar "firing squad"

as you can see the SERPs are very promising. The first post: R e: Whiney's gives valuable information:

Secondly, my favorite daughter gave to me for my 50th, recently, a photograph book entitled <<The Indelible Image - Photographs of War - 1846 to the Present>>. On page 87 there is picture of Fortino Samano, a Mexican revolutionary (1916) supposedly taken moments before his execution. He is smoking a cigar, hands in his pockets, relaxed stance, staring straight ahead. They said that he gave the order to fire to his firing squad. It is an incredible photograph.

If you try to find that image of him, using the query string "Fortino Samano" on Google image search or "Fortin o Samano" on Google web search, you wouldn't get any image.

So lets try alltheweb. "Fortino Samano" doesn't give any results on alltheweb image search, but if you follow the links on SERPs of "F ortino Samano" you'll find an image. The first result page Remerciements has a link to the image you want: Fortino Samano.

Nemo

Petit image