The strangeness of Picasa

Google's Picasa is a piece of photo-management software that has what is simultaneously one of the most useful and most strangely unnerving functions that I have seen in image managers. It can look through a library of your photographs and identify one particular face, then take a close up cropping of that face and display it. This is intended to make it easier to see all photographs of one person, and does, but when the images are aggregated over a large collection, the effect is odd.

When all photos of one person are displayed contiguously, the wall of slightly similar and yet mostly identical faces that result are just plain strange. Have you ever gotten to consider what your picture-time smile looks like in a complete vacuum? Have you ever seen your friends doing it? There's no doubt that the way we grin for the camera is distinct from our real smile, and even for the most photogenic that trend is abundantly apparent with volume.

Here is one small portion of the map of me. I noticed looking at it that I have a fairly distant expression in most photographs. If you're looking to pass some time I advise checking this out. You can find Picasa for free here: http://picasa.google.com/.



Best,
Tim