Through the Lens
Deciphering the reality we’re augmenting in images
Two decades ago, pictures were precious. Digital cameras existed, but no one really had one — certainly no one had one that was with them at all times, in their pocket. Point-and-shoot cameras were still a thing. As were disposable cameras. Both of which were just “regular” cameras shrunken down and sold more cheaply so as to reach a wider audience. But they still weren’t exactly cheap, namely because film still cost a lot both to buy and to process.
So again, pictures were precious. You had twenty or so shots per film roll. And you best use them wisely lest they go to waste.
This concept may sound crazy to a teenager. Most of those kids have grown up in a world where you not only take a picture of everything, you often take multiple pictures of the same thing because, what difference does it make? Thanks to digital photography matched with cheap, massive storage, why would you not take a picture of everything? And again, all of us now have a digital camera with us at all times. And it’s a really good one. Certainly better than most point-and-shoots and definitely better than all disposable cameras of yesteryear. The cameras on our phones.
I recall my first phone with a camera: the Motorola Razr. I believe it took stills just over 1 megapixel in size. They were pretty awful quality. And that device had relatively limited storage to hold such works of art. Still, it was awesome to have a camera with you at all times.
With the upgrade to the iPhone, the amount of pictures I would take jumped significantly. The initial version of the device didn’t have a great sensor (2 megapixels), but it was still far better than any camera you were used to carrying with you at all times (because most people still did not carry any camera with them at all times). A few iterations later, the iPhone became the top camera in the world. It became the “best” camera because it was the one you always had with you.
Then came the latest piece of the equation: the cloud. Cheap, virtually unlimited remote storage options for photography supercharged picture-taking once again. Now the problem has become the inverse of the one above. Because we can and do take pictures of everything, the issue is now sifting through all those images to get value and meaning out of them. Luckily, many services are now starting to specialize in just that for large repositories.
So, like everyone, I now find myself increasingly taking pictures of many, many things throughout a day. Whereas before, I might have waited for a special occasion to bring a camera, and then later I might have waited for a great moment to warrant a capture, now I’m taking a picture of seemingly random things. On purpose! A sign. A receipt. Where I parked a car. Something I might want to buy. Something I just bought. Me opening something I just bought. A beer I’m drinking. The food I’m eating.
You get the point. That was literally just me looking through my most recent images in my camera roll (the digital kind, not the old school, actual roll mentioned above). The iPhone tells me I’m about 100 pictures away from 25,000 in my library. Most of those, of course, are in the cloud — collected over the past few years on different devices.
And a not insignificant number of those are screenshots. Yes, those are pictures too. I may not “take” them, but I do capture them. And I increasingly do this for all sorts of reasons. Maybe to remember details about a movie ticket I just bought. Maybe to remember where I’m going on a map. Maybe to send that map easily to someone else. Maybe to remember a funny tweet. Maybe to send an Instagram to someone else. Etc.
Anyway, all of these things listed above have led me to a world in which I use images to capture and document just about everything in my life. In a very real way, capturing pictures is the new note-taking. If I’m at a bookstore and find a book I may be interested to read down the road, why would I open a note-taking app (let alone an actual notebook) to type out the name and maybe jot down the author? Why not just snap a picture of it? And replace that book with nearly anything…
Pictures aren’t just pictures anymore. They’re no longer just the precious kind. That’s but one kind of picture, and those kind are becoming the minority.
That’s why, to me, by far the most interesting thing that Google showcased at their hardware event a couple weeks ago was the Google Lens in action. Yes, they’ve talked about it before — notably, at Google I/O this past year — but seeing is believing. When this thing rolls out with the Pixel 2 devices (and hopefully many other devices shortly down the road), this could be the next step in the trajectory outlined above.
Many services, from Facebook to Google Photos, are now able to parse images for pictures of people. Pictures of things has started to happen as well. But the ability to distill everything in an image and tie it into information floating out there on the giant database we call the internet will be truly profound. And we seem very, very close to that happening.
Many people these days are excited about the camera as it relates to augmented reality. And I think rightfully so. It could very well be that the next “platform” was right in front of our eyes all this time. But it’s equally important to not lose sight of what lies beneath all of this: the reality layer. And the ability to not only augment that reality, but to fully decipher and understand it will be important for many, many things.
Imagine a world in which we can take a picture of anything and let the algorithms sort it out. Maybe we do that in real time through a lens — be it the phone screen, or some wearable, or something else — or maybe we do it after the fact. When scrolling through a camera roll, maybe we see a picture we took, and with one tap, we see everything we could ever want to know about what’s in that image. It’s like an augmented memory. And it’s all within sight.
