Image information retrieval...

...is like any information retrieval. One somehow tries to match the query and documents. There are just no good ways to formulate the queries to match with images, or to describe the images to make them easy to search.

One may for example ask: "Who has taken that picture used on the torn poster?"

2014 I wrote this:

Here you can see the same poster earlier:

To answer why and what the poster is used for is easy to find if the poster is still readable:

takku.net/mediagallery/mediaobjects/disp/6/6_aanestamallaoikeutat.jpg

This takku.net calls themselves as a "media project against the tyranny of majority":

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

But I would like to know who has taken the photograph used on the poster. I searched using phrases like "shoe polishers" and "shoe cleaners" but couldn't find this image. One could try something like search in different languages or try to add more clues from the poster. For example one may recognize that people in the image have Asian features. And then there are small details that reveals the picture is quite likely taken in this century (trash can, paper bag, clothes, pavement etc.).

Later I probably managed to find the place where the photo has been taken:

www.hongkonghustle.com/wp-content/photos/Queen__s_Theatre_Theatre_Lan.jpg

I first searched for "shoe polishers street" and then end up searching for "shoe shine hong kong".

2019 I discovered this:

Five years later more can be found:

fivetastic.weebly.com/harmeet/the-rich-the-poor

www.flickr.com/photos/eddielaw/25437099/sizes/o/in/photostream

For some reason I could not find those sources back in 2014. But now I found out the author Eddie at Flickr, who has photographed the image used on that poster. Which then suggests that the photograph used on the poster by takku.net has become used without the permission of the author.