Solution: Viewfinder

Answer: STREETPHOTO

Written by Grant Yang

The puzzle consists of 7 folders each containing many image strips. The names of the folders and most of the images are anagrams of: RED HERRING, implying that the given orders are meaningless. The strips in each folder are the same width and can be rearranged to form almost complete Google Street View locations, missing one or two strips from each image.

Street View Image	Painting	Artist	Blanks
Place de Dublin	P A R I S S T R E E T; R A I N Y D A Y * 9 * 16 3	Caillebotte	ST
Ornans Cemetary	A B U R I A L A T O R N A N S * 17 11 8	Courbet	R
Hampshire House	T H E S U I C I D E O F D O R O T H Y H A L E * 7 * 1 14	Kahlo	EE
Maidenhead Railway Bridge	R A I N, S T E A M A N D S P E E D 2 18 * 6 *	Turner	TP
Le Café La Nuit	C A F É T E R R A C E A T N I G H T 20 15 12 *	Van Gogh	H
Battersea Bridge	N O C T U R N E: B L U E A N D G O L D * * 4 13	Whistler	OT
Olson House	C H R I S T I N A’ S W O R L D 19 10 * 5	Wyeth	O

The locations are all sites of famous paintings, and the name lengths of the paintings are confirmed by the number of strips each image is divided into (including missing ones). Matching the letters of the painting names to strips, the numbered strips spell out: ORDER MISSING BY ARTIST. Reordering the letters of the missing strips by the last name of the artists alphabetically spells out the final answer: STREET PHOTO

Author’s Notes

I had an idea to add image strips of paintings for the first round meta but scrapped the idea. I thought this concept was thematic for the hunt so I made it into its own puzzle using some of my favorite paintings. I was inspired by /r/PictureGame to identify geographical locations from minimal identifying information, so my original construction blurred out all text in the images. Halfway through, I thought it would be too hard and uninteresting so I retained the box in the bottom left of the Street View images to make the locations easily identifiable. Framing the photos to be similar to the paintings was a fun challenge, but not entirely possible in some cases. I’m especially proud of the framing for A Burial At Ornans.

I also originally planned for 11 paintings total but figured it would also be too tedious. Some scrapped paintings that I still have the image strips for include American Gothic, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, Bal du Moulin de la Galette, and The Gross Clinic.