cinder_knot Opened it #1
Sent a photo in chat last week, a nice one from my balcony, golden hour, very flattering light on the plants. Match replies almost immediately, oh nice, is that the west end? He was right and I hadn’t told him my side of the city, let alone the block.
Spent the whole evening learning about EXIF data, so at least the panic was educational. Turns out my camera had location saving on this entire time. Every photo in my roll has coordinates sitting inside it. I had never checked once.
Here’s the twist though. He didn’t even use the metadata. I asked him, fully braced for something creepy, and he just recognized the skyline. There’s a distinctive tower in the corner of the shot. So I fixed the settings and it wouldn’t have mattered, the photo was announcing my address in a language I forgot other people can read.
He was decent about it and honestly the whole exchange was fine, he’s local, it’s not strange that he knows the view. But it could have been someone else. Anyway, posting this as my cautionary tale. Checklist additions welcome, I’m collecting them now like a reformed person.
