Patent ID: 7468747

Claim:
An image management system comprising: a photographing device including a photographing means installed at a fixed point, for obtaining image data representing an image of a person by photographing the person and an output means for outputting the image data; a photographing control device for controlling the photographing means so that the photographing means continuously photographs a plurality of times at a predetermined time interval and causing the photographing device to obtain a plurality of image data; an image selecting device including a judging means for judging whether or not a person included in each of a plurality of photograph images represented by each of the plurality of image data has his/her eyes open and a selecting means for selecting a single set of image data representing a photograph image which includes the person who is judged to have his/her eyes open; and a storage device for storing the single set of image data selected by the image selecting devices, wherein the photographing control device includes a number-of-person counting means for counting a number of persons who will be photographed by the photographing device and an instructing means for instructing the photographing device to increase a number of times of photographing with increase of the number of persons counted by the number-of-person counting means, and the number-of-person counting means counts the number of persons who will be photographed in each of the plurality of photograph images, and the instructing means instructs the photographing device to increase the number of times of photographing taken at the predetermined time interval based on the increase of the number of persons counted within a photographing area, simultaneously.