AI helping locate a photograph

 Following this on remote-sensing journalism, here is a practical use of Google Gemini. Note also a much earlier use in 2020 of Google Earth to reconstruct a viewpoint here.

A NYT news video here contrasted the two main contenders in this week's Israeli elections (sidebar: Perplexity helped me find the video after the NYT app lost track of it...); found a striking image of young female soldiers crossing paths with a young male Hasidic Jew (judging by her age, she's in military service which his sect are exempt of, a key election issue hence the snap):

click to enlarge, source above

What I did:

1. cleaned up a screen grab after uploading it into Google Photos using Magic Erase
2. Google Translated the text on the signs in the background
3. took what might help identify the location (Seneca region, Dransim bridge)
4. loaded it into into Google Maps that placed it N of Tyre, Lebanon
5. queried that picture and location in Google Gemini, that provided this explanation:

Q: Google tramslate says text locates this pic "seneca region, dransim bridge, israel", Google Maps puts it in Jazireh  Lebanon, can you locate it

A: The location provided by Google Maps and the literal translation you got were incorrect.

This photo was actually taken outside the Tel Hashomer military base (the central recruitment center of the Israel Defense Forces) in Ramat Gan, Israel.

Here is why the translation was slightly misinterpreted:

• The Hebrew and Arabic signs say "RESCUE AREA" (רחבת הצלה / منطقة إنقاذ) and instructions for fire hydrants, which are common utility/safety markings at military installations and large public compounds.
• The translation mishap likely mistook Ramat Gan (רמת גן)—the city where the recruitment center is located—for something else (such as a "seneca region" due to an OCR translation glitch), and "dransim" or similar terms likely stemmed from misread Hebrew text related to the draft/recruitment center context.

What is happening in the photo:

The image captures female Israeli soldiers walking past ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jewish boys/men during a protest against military conscription outside the Tel Hashomer recruitment center in Ramat Gan."

Voilà! AI helped ID the picture and context in a way a short video simply cannot.

Non-AI footnote

Gemini quotes CBC.ca here but see below the slight difference in framing and positioning: the woman's glance and the tighter frame make the above a great photo. Another NYT reporter describes here a photographer doing at bottom a perfectly tight framing.

click to enlarge, source above

click to enlarge, source above