Does anyone have a similar orienteering-related hobby as we have? For many years my wife, Sue, and I have been searching for the locations that inspired some painters of the Canadian north. The members of the Group of Seven are Canada's best known artists. The group was formed in 1920. Although they painted in cities and towns, their best known works were done in the wilderness.
Our hobby is something like photo-O. One difference is that we usually don't have a photograph but instead we have a landscape painting. However, the real difference is that often we don't know which map to find the place on. Most often the artists didn't record where they did their work. We try to find clues in the title or in the painting that might narrow things down and then search topos for similar places. Then we travel to the candidate places to see if we are correct. If so, we take a picture of what the place looks like now. We prefer to search for the places that can only be reached by canoe.
There are many painting sites known for the European masters but there were very few known in Canada. So far we have found more than 150 locations.
The following link shows two comparisons between paintings and photographs. AJ Casson's "Little Bay in the North Channel" and Franklin Carmichael's "Untitled (La Cloche Landscape)". The third image shows an old photo of Carmichael sitting on a rock sketching and the same rock today.
http://picasaweb.google.com/GHOSLOW/PaintingO?auth...
(I drew a line through the image of the painting because of copyright concerns.)
I'd be interested to hear of anyone else who has done similar things.
Jim