10,500 photos

Back in February 2016, I saw two nature phenomenons that I talk about fondly till this day. One of them was nacreous clouds, also known as mother-of-pearl clouds or ice polar stratospheric clouds. I remember staring at them from the product design studio in college.

By the time I came out of the building, the rainbow clouds had drifted away, far enough that I started to think of them as something of the past. The next thing that happened was equally novel to my eyes—the sky turned an unnatural purple. It wasn’t the blend of an orange sunset and darkening blue sky; it was this real-life, muted version of cyberpunk purple.

I can easily retrieve the feeling of awe just thinking about those moments, but I know my memory is unreliable. Maybe the sky wasn’t that amazing, and if I didn’t have the pictures, I wouldn’t have proof that any of this even happened. But why should it matter if what I remember isn’t “objectively” true or exactly what I saw at the time?

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I’m not a fan of taking pictures by pressing and holding the button and then saying, “One of the 68 photos will be good enough” (I’m thinking of you, L). I like the idea of meaningful photos taken with intention. And yet, I have nearly 10,500 photos and 945 videos on my phone. I guess the bar for “meaningful” and “intentional” has been low over the past few years. In 2024, I took 1,595 photos (maybe this isn’t a shocking number?). I like to do a spring clean of my photos every once in a while, but the idea of sifting through more than 10k photos fills me with dread.

Based on my rough estimates, 5% of them are functional photos—document scans, receipts, or screenshots. Maybe 30% are obligatory photos—food photos, events in everyday life, i.e., photos I take almost in autopilot mode, but if asked why, I wouldn’t have a good answer. Another 20% are semi-duplicate photos—pictures of the same scenario but with small variations, e.g., the subject in the photo is looking in different directions. A few are strange photos that I accidentally took or don’t remember taking but are somehow quite interesting.

That leaves roughly 40% for truly meaningful photos of rare events, like the nacreous clouds, the purple sky, or a dear friend’s wedding. These are the important moments in time, frozen in a visual format: proof of what happened and tools to help me recall the story at some point.

There was a time when I neatly organized my photos into folders by year. There was also a time when I made an effort to print my photos and put them in photo albums. I always loved going through our family albums as a child, and I wanted to keep that tradition going. This was back when I had a camera and found joy in documenting my life through the lens. Then, phone cameras became better, and my camera was abandoned.

The ease of snapping photos on my phone cultivated a memories hoarder in me. What bothers me most is that, at some point, I became pretty bad at distinguishing between the truly meaningful events and those I feel I should remember. It’s like taking a picture mostly served the purpose of making the real more real.

I don’t feel like I take pictures as compulsively as I used to, although the numbers in my Photos app tell a slightly different story:

I can be quite nostalgic. I don’t see why thinking about the past should conflict with living in the present or moving forward. In fact, the act of reflection is deeply underappreciated, and it’s very different to “dwelling on the past”. I’ll elaborate on this in another post.

There’s a certain comfort in being able to access the past with a few swipes, but I’ve been wondering if I should archive my photos every year and have no photos on my phone on January 1st. I wonder if this ritual would influence how I experience each year. I wonder if I’d turn into a more confident storyteller who doesn’t feel the need to be factually correct.

We’re on the 6th day of the brand-new year, and my Photos app remains unchanged. I guess it wasn’t so important after all? I doubt I’ll be looking at old photos much, unless Apple decides to revert the pointless new design for Photos.

A lot of New Year’s resolutions / goals / plans end up being just that—not important after all, or perhaps set with the wrong intentions to begin with. Still, I’ve been given an opportunity to write about this, and that’s something I genuinely intend to do more of: writing. I also want to read more fiction, find a genre of dance I like to practice, continue caring about what I care about and share more of it.

Anyway, Happy New Year!