Too Many Photos, Not Enough Sense

Some people collect coins. I collect photos. Nearly 20,000 of them. All since 2016. All on my iPhone.

So when our community offered a class on organizing iPhone photos—editing, sharing, decluttering—I thought, “Maybe I should go.” I mean, I know my way around the camera app. But organizing 20,000 photos? That’s a real challenge.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn about a handy little feature: Duplicate Detection. Finally! A way to wrangle my burst-mode mania. I take multiple shots of the people and concerts for newsletters and websites, hoping to catch the perfect expression. I find the perfect shot, but I’m too lazy to delete the ones I didn’t use. Enter Artificial Intelligence (AI): It compares duplicates and creates a “best” version by combing the best parts of all the photos. Sounds great, right?

You don't get expressions like this by taking only one shot

Well… kinda. I’m not entirely sure I trust it yet. Since AI still has glitches, I worry that if AI gets it wrong, Hubby’s pic might end up looking like Frankenstein’s monster. But it’s worth a try. I’ll test it on less important photos first. Like my 67 blurry shots of scenery taken from the car window.

The Photos app auto-groups photos: People & Pets, Trips, Memories. According to AI, I’ve been to Wyoming, Montana, Biltmore House, and Evansville. But somehow, it skipped Cuba, despite the hundreds of labeled pics I took there. Again, not perfect.

In the People and Pets grouping, if you select the pic of a person or pet, there’s a box at the bottom of the picture that says Name This Person. Fill it in, and AI will search your photos and find every photo with that person, including group photos.

Left: Name This Person; Right: People and Pets with Names

One of the auto-groups on my phone is birds. In the birds grouping, AI found 69 pictures… including 13 of someone receiving a plaque. I wondered why it included those pictures. Turns out there’s a bird etched on the plaque.

This was in my birds grouping

In the past, I have used the search function to find pictures. When I use the search for birds, - surprise!—it finds 669 pictures, 600 more pics than the autogrouping. AI’s nothing if not inconsistent.

I take pictures of bizarre things. Some people take pictures of their food. Not me. I take pictures of cool license plates. When I search for car to find them, it also returns screenshots with the word “car.” But I’m happy to find out I'm not the only one who photographs license plates. When I glanced at the woman's phone next to me, a license plate was displayed on the screen. I chuckled and showed her my license plate pics. Maybe quirky photo habits are more common than we think. (By the way, I just tried searching for license plates, and it works – I have 219 photos.)

Search for car finds pics with the word car

Do you want strange? I’ve got strange. I shot wind turbine blades on a semi-truck. When will I ever use those? Here's the picture. See, I finally used them! 

Row of wind turbine blades. Look how big they are compared to the semi pulling them. I wish the pic were clearer

Meaning to compare prices, I took a picture of Toilet bowl cleaner with the price tag. I never did compare prices as I intended. Yet after 9 years, I still have the picture.

 I've photographed slides from presentations, but I never organized them into an album. I’ve taken pictures of 132 recipes we’ll never cook because they include an ingredient hubby won’t touch, like cucumber. It's like my organized brain disconnects when I have the phone/camera in my hands. It's so easy to take a picture, I can't resist.

Let’s not forget the 80 exercise routines I snapped from magazines. Have I done even one of those workouts? Nope. But maybe the calories burned while swiping through them count?

Why did I snap this?

And then there’s the black hole of unintentional photos. You know, your foot. The floor. The ceiling. I searched “ceiling” and got 129 results. Deleted 70 right away. Victory!

Experts warn that our obsession with capturing every moment can diminish our experience of it.  They recommend “Mindful Photography:” taking only a few meaningful shots. Be in the moment. Don’t photograph your cat every time he stretches or every museum tag. Read the tag and forget the taking photo. But, admit it. It’s faster to just take the photo. Only I don’t read them when I get home.

Museum tag - Chris Larsen Park, Sioux City, Iowa

So here’s my vow: no more museum tags, no more exercise routines, and no more recipes for cucumber-based anything. Actually, no more recipes, period!

I may never get my photo library down to a respectable size. But thanks to a few new tools—and a hefty dose of self-awareness—I just might start deleting more than I snap. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll enjoy the moment instead of trying to capture it from 17 slightly different angles.

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Note: I'm sorry to say that Android phones don't have the delete duplicates feature - yet. Want to bet they get it soon?