always hated family photos. it tasted of lost purposes in my family. too posed to feel like a memento of the moment, not posed enough to feel like we were painting a portrait to display with pride.
Actual reasons to take photos:
- high bandwidth data logging. if you ever want a bunch of time series data on the people you know, for medical research or social studies probably, photos are straight up a window into the past. Best taken at true-randomly distributed intervals, with regular periodic as next best.
- to trigger in-depth recall. this is also served by souvenirs, smells especially are really powerful. I want to have a ~scrapbook that helps me move along a chronology of my life. And a section that is about importance, where I keep reminders of things I want to keep salient. Remembering the bedrocks of relationships, identity.
(wow, I kept this in draft for ages)