Fun fact: EXIF is simultaneously JPEG format (EXIF spec describes compressed image file format which is based on JIF, the base JPEG file format described in JPEG spec, also EXIF is for "EXchangeable Image File format", suggesting that authors saw it as new file format) and TIFF format (EXIF metadata is actually embedded TIFF which can be parsed with tiffdump, also EXIF spec describes uncompressed image file formats which are TIFF with embedded EXIF metadata which is also TIFF...)

Its a less fun fact when you have to write a parser for it

All the various metadata formats are kind of weird. IIM (less popular now but still sometimds seen in jpeg files. Was originally for news organizations) is even weirder than Exif. My favourit part is how you specify its utf-8 by adding the iso-2022 escape code in a field. Like wut.