I found something unexpected in my Photos folder
Over the past year, I’ve become increasingly aware of a novel kind of notification from my phone. It’s not from a messaging app, or social media account, or a news alert. It’s from a purely internal source that’s not connected to the outside world; my camera roll.
It prompts me to revisit pictures from the past. Using the stored data of the photos, and it’s embedded AI, the Photos app tries to guess at categories to bucket up into a selection of ‘memories’.
It caught me off guard. At first I didn’t like it. It felt like an intrusion on my privacy. But, over time, it’s come to represent a source of honest reflection in my life.
My phone’s ‘memories’
This isn’t a ‘new’ thing. Facebook was probably the first to try to do this with the launch of its ‘On This Day’, ‘Friendversary’ and ‘Memories’ features.
But there’s an inherent issue in social media compiling these curations; they have a limited data set to draw on. These accounts can only show me what I have previously chosen to post publicly.
And, therefore, it’s simply a reminder of a version of myself, or events, that I chose to portray to the public at the time. It’s too consciously curated. It’s most likely how I wanted to be perceived, not entirely who I was. And as we’ve all come to realise with social media, those versions of ourselves very rarely, if ever, tell the full story. We post the most memorable, not the mundane. We post the best, optimised versions of ourselves, not the blurry rushed snaps with the stranger entering the frame from the left.
But my phone’s camera roll has a lot more honesty in it.
A selection of my phone’s randomly generated memories
The above is a small selection of some of my phone’s recent offerings:
A peek into the past: I have no idea who these people are, or where or why this was taken
Way back when…: Snippets of snow aside, this is an out of focus and distinctly ‘meh’ picture.
Electricity meter: A remnant of a monthly habit from a previous flat, necessary so I could enter it into my provider’s app later. (There was an admittedly better way to do this.)
A picture of a real photograph: an image from years gone by with an outfit and hairstyle I’d sooner forget.
My phone has no choice but to guess at what might be meaningful to me when it puts these memory clusters together. Sometimes the AI does a decent job and groups together different photos of oceans, or stadiums, or the numerous images of different beer cans I've photographed over the years. It tries to pair them with a hideously generic caption ("Looks refreshing!" - to be fair, most of them were).
But because it’s guessing from a huge range of images, more often than not these photos are imperfect. Boring, even. Out of focus, not well framed, a rushed snap. And I love them for that. Because I took them for a reason that meant something to me at the time. Sometimes I can’t even remember the reason, other times it’s obvious, and others still it’s something that represented a moment just for me.
My phone presents me memories of happy times, chaotic times, mundane times, sad times, embarrassing times. A picture of a much loved, yet long gone childhood pet. Times spent with people I’ve since moved on from in my life. A photo I took of post-its at work to refer to as notes. An image from the Top of the Rock in New York.
It feels like a far more authentic mix of what my life has been over time. It grounds me. Seeing a photo of a monthly electricity meter reading makes me more grateful for those special moments I’ve had at wonderful places. Seeing a photo of an unexpected face stirs unexpected emotions within me, and a chance to reflect for better or worse. It reminds that I’m still here to look back at them. And questions whether I feel like I’ve grown or learnt since then.
Seeing these unusual arrays of memories gives me time to reflect. Just me. Free from the comments of others, or considering how a post was liked or shared. It allows me a rare moment to view an image through just my lens of experience. It feels personal and special, like a unique secret known only to me in that instant.
And in that small space of reflection that gets created, I’m reminded of a saying that’s been attributed to many. But I personally like Tom Krause’s version the most, a Finnish opera singer from the 1960s:
“Things are never as good as you think they are, and things are never as bad as you think they are. The truth is, we are all somewhere in the middle.”
My phone’s arbitrary memories ground me in the middle. I love being reminded of how much of life is spent there. When I have the middle in mind, it helps me in two ways:
In great moments, I’m reminded to pay attention to the present and be grateful for it. Because all too soon, they too will become memories.
In the terrible moments, I’m reminded of everything I’ve come through before in the past - where I’d have given anything to just be back in the middle - and this too shall pass.
I’m not the biggest fan of modern technology. I believe it’s gotten the upper hand in too many ways in modern life over our biological tendencies. But my little Photo folder trying its best to guess at memories serves as a reminder that we have the option to choose how we use modern technology when we pay a little bit of attention to its role in our lives.
I didn’t expect to find a nugget hidden in my phone that I’d be grateful for in this way.
I value the middle, especially when it’s mundane.
