Photos usually have more information in them than you might expect…

This is a photo of the SkyTree in Tokyo, Japan. (That is, 東京スカイツリー, Tōkyō Sukaitsurī)

It’s the tallest tower in the world–taller than the Canton Tower (which was loftiest until 2011) and is (currently) the second tallest structure in the world after the Burj Khalifa (which is 829.8 m or 2,722 ft). It’s a neofuturist design that captures the genius loci of modern Tokyo.

Comparison of tallest towers. By timesdad, P/C Wikimedia.

Here’s another photo of the SkyTree, this time taken from the Bing Maps image.

(I used Bing Maps satellite imagery because they had a beautifully clear pic with a very crisp shadow of the tower.)

As you also know, a shadow can reveal much–in particular, it can tell us everything about when the photo was taken.

Here’s another photo of the tower shadow, with a red arrow showing the length of the shadow. It goes from the center of the tower’s base to just beyond the bridge over the Sumida river.

Our Challenge for today is simple:

1. What day and time-of-day was this photograph taken?

This might seem crazy-hard, but it’s actually fairly straight-forward. (And no, you don’t have to remember your elementary trig to figure it out–remember that you have search engines to help you out!)

I wanted to pose this Challenge because it’s another example of “if you know something is possible, you can figure out how to do it with a bit of search.”

This really IS straight-forward–just don’t get scared along the way.

Be SURE to let us know how you figured the answer; we all want to learn along with you!

Search On!