49 Times The Internet Solved Photo Mysteries Better Than Google Maps

Broken_Syntax_01: Did he ever go to Turkiye? Go look at the photo spheres available close to this location. It's in that bay just northwest of Kalkan Beach Park.
36°15'31"N 29°24'10"E 
Im-Henrik: This is a remarkable find.
Absyntho: Awesome find! He was most likely exactly here.

romulusnr: OP, thank you for the hunt. I believe I have found it.
I tracked the image back to a German photography company PPAM, and then to a photographer Manuel Gutjahr, and he has other photos on his Flickr which appear to be in the same location. It is Amrum Island, Germany. Compare to Google Maps photos such as this one.
Also pics on his IG.

Hi all - can any of you lovely folks nail this down for me please? The carrier bag strongly suggests Wales, but I know that Grandad had a trip to Oban in that approximate era so it might be a red herring. I’m confident it’s late 1970s, or 1980 at the latest.

mcintg: Outside the Hydro hotel in Llandudno Wales.

My folks are in Edinburgh, Scotland for a few days and seeing if we can track it down while they are near!

KPV_UK: Best guess is on St Johns Road, here's a street view.

Kat75018: Bochum Germany, you're looking at the old Aral Headquarters. I think the new headquarters are at the same place.

MK2555GSFX: The building in the background is the old Aral HQ building in Bochum.
According to this site the new HQ was built on the site of the old one, so that puts it here.
If we're assuming that there's a fuel station on this site still, then it must be this one.

My parents bought the chair in the 1990s in Singapore. My grandparents were from Canada so maybe it comes from one of their pockets and slipped out years ago?

MonkeyPawWishes: Tammy Ten was a racecar from Ontario in the 1960s.

maccapackets: This is correct. You can see Driver Harv Lennox and Mechanic Joe Suhr painted on the back. The photo was likely taken at Nilestown Speedway east of London Ontario.

In a folder of old photos from a distant relative, I have found this old photograph, with a caption on the back written: “Raithby, Branksome, Dorset.”

I know that the house belonged to an old relative, who was a minister “Richard Walker”

Just seeing if anyone has an idea of if the house is still standing?

Figusto: Crescent Road, Poole (the area of Branksome in Poole)
The street view above shows the house, but it has scaffolding on it. Look at an older streetview and you'll see the house, which used to be known as Raithby.
Just adding: a bishop by the name of Rev Thomas Greenland used to live there until he [passed away] in 1904 (according to a newspaper article from the time).

hudsonSpan: Well, despite the very long distance from Italy, this may be the Queen Elizabeth Park bridge in Masterton New Zealand. Built in the 1930s and it is still standing. Located at 40°56'52.7"S 175°40'12.7"E. The towers, deck, railing, suspender clips are good matches, but the towers of the actual Masterton bridge strike me as being slightly wider than your photo.

hudsonSpan: The more I research the more I think this bridge was rebuilt in the late 1930s to the same design, possibly just with new towers and the same suspension system. A catastrophic flood hit Masterton in 1934. It may have partially destroyed the bridge. There was also an earthquake in 1942, but the current bridge seems to date to the late 1930s. OP's image appears to show the original bridge. Images cited as being in the 1920s all seem to show a bridge with slightly narrower towers than the current bridge.Either it was rebuilt or there was a nearby sister structure no longer standing.

MahatmaAndhi: Looks like Turnberry in Scotland.

Logical-History-36: Turnberry golf course (now Trump Turnberry) in South Ayrshire.

QuarckNL: Juta, Georgia.
Location on map.

h_a_z_: Oh wow! So this was my dad's loco. He worked on it with Bert (mentioned in another post) after rescuing it from a scrap yard in Barry Island in 1980 and restored it at Grosmont works on the North York Moors.
They had two engines, the other being 75014 - On my 16th birthday in the 90's I lit the first fire in one of their refurbished tenders (I can't remember which one it was, it's been a LONG time!). It ran all over the UK.
My dad is probably firing it in this photo. I asked him where it was taken. He said, frustratingly, "No Idea".
EDIT: He said "could be Faversham"
EDIT 2: "Not Faversham. That was the Black Five as well, later than Taw Valley. It will be further out west."
EDIT 3: "Could be Ashford but hard to tell now as it was redeveloped for Eurostar"
EDIT 4: looks like it is Ashford, here's a photo of the Taw Valley nameplate on our wall along with the Hogwarts Express nameplate that was made when they did the UK book launch for book 3 of Harry Potter and the loco was repainted and renamed for the tour. Nameplate

LieutenantClownCar: That's my hometown, Ashford in Kent. There's an ugly, mostly abandoned high-speed train station there now. I literally grew up about a mile down the road from here, where the line splits off to go to Canterbury. We used to get the Orient Express parked out the back of our house, and I'm fairly certain I remember seeing the Golden Arrow(?) idling out back once or twice in the 90's. Memory is a little fuzzy on that one however.

Findingjuno: Dwygyfylchi village and the sychnant pass, North Wales
Shown on this post card.

This seems to be location of the glen hotel in bottom right of picture and the building in the distance matches. So I presume your grandad was roughly here looking north east.

Original_March_170: Bahnhof Bökel. See the article.

fuzzywuzzy20: Lincoln, alongside the cathedral its just out of frame on the right

Consultingtesting: Ok so I posted to Lincolnshire Reddit and they nailed it. Here's the link.
Thanks for your contributions.

slothtastic1: They are standing in front of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin.

martinedoesgis: Hagenauerplatz.
Edit : looking at the angle, you took the picture from a window of the yellow building, Mozart's birth house.

boxtylad: It's on Herengtacht (near 384), just north of the intersection with Leidesgracht - approx google street view here. Attempt at juxtaposing old and new here.
Things to compare between the two - though you might have to move around in google maps to compare some of these; it's unfortunately not possible to get the exact same angle as the original photographer on street view, so you might have to bounce between a few nearby vantage points to see all the correspondences.

• The building on the corner here isn't facing into the canal that's heading to the right; instead the building is facing to the left.
• It's also a rather unusual double-gabled building - rather than two separate buildings side-by-side
• To the left of that building on the corner are a several buildings with flat root profiles - that's pretty unusual in Amsterdam, where most buildings have the classic Dutch stepped or peaked gables
• The kiosk with the conical top in the foreground is still there (as is the lamp in front of it!)
• This isn't a typical canal with bridge - it's a T-intersection, where we're looking along the curve of the canal, not just across to the opposite side
• The third or fourth house to the right of the corner one sticks up just a bit higher than the others

QuarckNL: It’s in Schiltach, Germany.

Donkey-Haughty: This photo was taken from 355 high road Wembley. Taken at the exactly the corner of 355 high road and ecclestone place.

During WW2 he was training at Kingseat Hospital, New Marchar and we think this a photo of a day out with other trainees at the hospital. I don’t have much more contact to provide, unfortunately, although the castle looking tower in the background should help?!

Grateful for any efforts!

wasthatitthen: Balmoral, it would seem.

reclueso: I reckon that might be Carne Beach, Veryan, Cornwall.

anon: Thailand. Here.
sensuspete: I was gonna say it looks like AI, turns out it's ThAI. Beautiful.

domsp79: Looks like Furness Abby.

Birdseeding: Yep, here's the view in the last image more or less exactly.

Arch2000: I think it’s a backdrop. It’s a similar height and vantage point from the Empire State Buildjng, but the lack of railings/safety equipment gives it away.

5h4tt3rpr00f:

From the angle to the Empire State (and UN), there are no taller buildings in that direction (World Trade is further South, etc). As others have said, likely a photo from a plane over the Hudson.

BillyD123455: You should get some good info here.

Building is the Palais de Justice, Brussels, Belgium.

BottyFlaps: This looks like the approximate spot on Google Street View.

As per the title, grandmother passed away recently and we found these photos where nobody knows where she went. AFAIK, she never left the UK or even had a passport.

I also add two poor AI versions that remove her and do some guesswork to give a better idea of the scene. Reverse image searching didn’t produce any results. I also tried a Google search of UK Lidos for the first photo but it may not be a Lido, but a pond of some sort?

Anyway, appreciate any help anyone can offer!


Own_Situation6300: Lynmouth, just by the Glen Lyn Gorge.

I think this is in Austria due to the hat on the man on the right, and also because my father had a good friend who married an Austrian and migrated to Austria, so it stands to reason he would have gone to visit his friend at some point.

TheCrookitFigger: Yes view from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, you can see the same view here at 0:57

This is my Grandad who used to take my Grandma on holidays to seaside towns in the UK. They were based in Lancashire but I known they made trips to the South Coast, even on the moped!

Grandad was born last 30s making this maybe late 60s early 70s?

All my family are gone now so I've nobody to ask where it was taken ... hoping I can maybe visit and recreate the photo.

Fingers crossed.

Logical-History-36: On the prom at Morecambe. Behind him is Ted’s Grill on the corner of Marine Road West and Albert Road, but sadly it’s not there anymore and it’s now just the Clarendon Hotel car park.

Weary_apparatchik: Victor Emmanuel Monument in Rome.

My grandfather before he got deployed to the martial islands in WW2. I understand they were taken in Strawberry Mansions Philadelphia. Can anyone identify the street based on the buildings in the back round?

SvenneLoser: N Bailey Street here.
I believe he’s outside the house with green/blue steps if you just turn around (unfortunately Google has blurred out most of the significant buildings, but Apple maps provide better pics)

My grandpa recently passed away and I found this beautiful photo in his archives - A souvenir from Paris, where him and my grandma, both Italians, lived for a while after moving to France.

I would be eternally grateful if someone could help my family identify where this photo was taken!

pop_six_squish_: I think this is the gardens next to the Louvre, Jardin des Tuileries.

gotoguns: Pretty sure this is the Patagonia Marathon.

Akroaxen: I heard back from the photographer and apparently it’s Chilean Patagonia!

InbhirNis: Looks like Chioggia and the Venetian Lagoon to me.

SylvanPrincess: Apparently, it’s El Peñol de Guatapé in Colombia. It looks stunning.

Birdseeding: It's on the National Theatre of Cluj-Napoca, so Hungary was not a bad guess. (It was in Hungary when it was built.)

FernsideModels: Likely Venice?
DM99: Found this Instagrammer who agrees...
But annoyingly he doesn't say where it is in Venice either.

Logical-History-36: Commercial Way in Peckham. The road with the white car is the junction with Peckham Hill St, and the block you can see behind the Unionist Club is Collinson House. Sister Mabel’s Way is now where the Unionist Club was.

ignoramusprime: Here.

AustinBrock: Outside The Sound of Vienna.

Arch2000: First one looks like the tower bridge in London.

anon: Second one is Marseille, France.

Additional_Yam_3794: 3rd one most likely is Lucerne Switzerland. Looking near the shore (or on bord of a ship) of Lake Lucerne towards mount Pilatus.

Academic_Split2206: The foreground is the roof of Marischal College in Aberdeen, looking west along Upperkirkgate. There are some different buildings there now, but the church spires are the same, and it's definitely [edit] the Kirk of St Nicholas to the left of the image.

Would love to know where this photo was taken. My grandad on a motorbike touring holiday.


NoSheepherder7287: 5 sisters of kintail from the Ratagan road?

Cyanopicacooki: It's been forested since then, but roughly the area.

My_lo_73: Harper St,/Middleport. Kingston upon Hull.

anon: Looks like Station Road, Tidworth (here).
If you look at old photos, there was a field and car park (top right of the photo) where the Tesco store is now located.

SimonX153: I live in a house that is the same style. Its called Backsteinexpressionismus (brick expressionism). There is a Wikipedia article about it:
"The term Brick Expressionism (German: Backsteinexpressionismus) describes a specific variant of Expressionist architecture that uses bricks, tiles or clinker bricks as the main visible building material. Buildings in the style were erected mostly in the 1920s, primarily in Germany and the Netherlands,[1] where the style was created."

Jenkins_Fish: Copenhagen is littered with these kind of apartment-buildings. "Herskabslejligheder" which was apartments for the upper middle-class and above.

boxtylad: Opera, Paris - street view.

wasthatitthen: Crummock water. Link.

It might seem like a dumb question but the pic was found on Flickr and says July 4th 1976 but looks very modern to me and some of the people look heavy weight and the color of photo is hit or miss

romulusnr: The building being constructed in the background appears to be the SouthShore Condominimums, which were supposedly completed in 2008.
This looks like the location of this pool, which is apparently no longer a pool. 
More info.
The original pool was built in 1976, though. So that may be what the date was originally meant to indicate.

Mental_Locke: It's in Singapore. Somewhere near the Marina Bay Sands hotel.

martinedoesgis: It's definitely not lake Como in Italy
Clearly photoshopped, here's the same without the peer, image first appeared on internet in 2012 it seems
Edit : Yep, original picture here.
Taken in Asos, Greece, I'd say from a beach down there.