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Comment by __MatrixMan__ | Hacker News Reader

I have a friend who refuses to take pictures without people in them. It seemed dumb at first but after several years of pictures piling up I can see he had a pretty good point.

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This is old advice, I remember it being framed as "if I wanted a picture of a monument I'd buy a postcard", and postcards basically no longer exist.

It made some sense to take pictures of panoramas or art when you could show something to people that could not see it otherwise, but in this era it makes no sense (unless you enjoy photography as a hobby).

A goofy picture of you kissing some old bronze statue? Dumb, but yours.

It’s not just “making it your own”.

I took the girls all around the US, around the world even as they were growing up. I had grown up in a “camera family” so always had one on trips as a parent too.

Now, with two decades behind me, the photos of my young daughters, wife are the vacation photos I return to.

Oldest daughter is wearing a kimono sipping tea at some place in the mountains of Japan… Two youngest are chasing each other on the beach of some island in Hawaii…

I suspect those photos would have been as precious to you if they were taken in your backyard.

You’re right. And I have those too. I was responding to the camera + vacation specifically though.

Turns out that the things I wish I'd taken photos of were: bookshelves (with titles visible), crappy old computers and things on the screen, posters I used to have on the wall, my everyday clothes, streets with parked cars, the inside of an art supply store.

These are not achievements, or unusual places, or humans. The things I'd like to see are stores of subtle cultural information than gets lost because it seems unimportant, and then a couple of decades later I want to look at all the details of it again but I can't. What was that car I used to be slightly interested by every time I walked past it? What range of items used to be for sale? What books did I have? What was actually on that poster that got torn and thrown out and now it's impossible to find another? Instead of answers, I have holiday snaps and pictures of humans.

This is funny because I found myself wishing the exact same thing not too long ago. My family took a few pictures of ancient computers with things on the screen; I wish we'd had a lot more. Some of that stuff from back then is completely lost to the sands of time.

We started watching ER since HBO got it last month. My favorite thing about it is the time-capsule of 1994 that it is. The clothes. The software (likely a terminal to a mainframe!). The stacks on stacks of physical documents (no EMR!).

I love that kind of thing too. I lean towards capturing that partly through photos but also through saving occasional pieces of paper or other physical artifacts. Like when I travel, I'll save receipts, restaurant menus, little brochures from museums, etc. At home, although I can't save everything (my apartment is already cluttered enough!), I'll hang onto occasional things like concert programs, election mailers, etc., just because I find they do a pretty good job of encapsulating something about the time they were in. It saddens me in a way that many of those things are being phased in favor of digital alternatives, because the physical objects have a certain intrinsic coherence that files lack.

Photographs of shelves of VHS tapes, books, and TTRPGs from childhood, and the homes of relatives are what I value above a lot of other photos. I had one of the earliest digital cameras, but the photos survived many data losses, and finally being of an age to appreciate a favourite book of a long-deceased relative is unspeakably special.

> and postcards basically no longer exist

You mean in the sense that no one sends/receives them? Because that might be true for the younger generation, but postcards are still available literally anywhere I've been in the world, and are still very easy to send, for those who enjoy that.

I just came back from two weeks touring Thailand. No postcards to be found anywhere. None. Lots of Buddha and elephant souvenirs though... Not sure what to make of that, but I guess they just weren't selling anymore?

In the last 5 or so trips (Europe and Africa), I was able to both find and send postcards from all of the countries. So they are definitely out there, and it is a nice way to put a smile on someone's face, especially since they are so rarely sent and received.

Hardly believe that. Been there a few years back and definitely found them.

just got back from there - same. They had various novelty postcards, e.g. build a bridge or elephant out of them - but no picture postcards from the region.

> but postcards are still available literally anywhere I've been in the world, and are still very easy to send, for those who enjoy that.

I mean both that they are used much less and they're much less available.

You can find postcards of the Coliseum in Rome, but you'll have a hard time finding one of Palazzo Farnese in Caprarola.

Even in major touristic hotspots, 30 years ago you'd find postcards sold at any shop, but these days you have to look for a while, in my experience.

The worse-looking (grotty, run-down, probably mostly sells cigarettes) type of souvenir shop has the best chance of selling postcards, in my experience. The photographs might have been taken in 1995.

I've been to some countries where only the official post office was allowed to sell stamps. That makes things much more inconvenient than the shop selling postcards also selling the stamps.

replaced with "if I wanted a pic of a monument I'd look it up on the net" (or even I'd generate it myself). Same; Instead of getting someone in front of a nice scenery (or even getting the scenery by itself), I consider putting a nice background to the photos of people I love.

This is really important point. Photos without people can be art. But photos with people capture memories. As a photographer I had to learn this with time and blurry, bad angled picture with favourite people capturing precious moment is zilions times more valuable (at least to me) than perfect picture of some architecture I took.

About 15 years ago, I was traveling and taking some photos with my gf at the time. I remember this photographer with a very professional camera, like one of those you see on the sports field. He made some comment towards us, trying to joke.. Why do people take photos of themselves, you know what they look like.

For a moment I thought...he's right, I see myself and my girlfriend all the time.

Then I realized...objects, never change, why do you take it. What makes your photo unique? He was by himself, taking photos. He has no one to capture his moment.

Although I don't disagree with him - I do have some nice landscape and photos, of just trees, mountains, and of course tourist buildings. But in modern times...I will always take a photo with, and without people.

Sometimes I look back and I am in the mood to just look at places I've visited, sometimes, I want to look a who I visited with.

I hope that man found someone he enjoys taking photos with/of.

I would frame it differently, since I keep seeing a lot of very old photos of ie glaciers in Chamonix, France area that are very different now and much receded and thinned.

Don't photo (much) things that won't change. Things that change - people, but also landscape to certain level, cars, technology, even some buildings, sure its amazing to look back for you, or anybody else after decades and see the change. Obviously people change the most.

Basic photography advice is to have something alive in each photo. Not 100% but a good rule of thumb.

That's very interesting. I don't do the same thing for religious reasons. So the photos I do have are utilitarian, e.g., pictures I took of some plants for the purpose of later IDing them. Such things are quite fascinating to look back at 8 years later.

We also don't have any wedding photos, newborn photos, family photos, etc and there is a certain special feeling to knowing what someone looked like when they were younger lives only in our memories. Particularly in a world where we are flooded with pictures all the time.

The AI era makes this even more interesting. A custom in our circles is to try to find a photo for your profile pic on WhatsApp that maybe sort of looks like you, since it can't be a photo actually of you. So now AI-generated photos are quite popular for this purpose. I think it is an interesting art form.

Likewise, new baby announcements don't have a photo of the baby... you will get either an artistic impression or something, or else something AI generated, often of another type of animal. My second son was represented by a koala bear, my first daughter by abstract watercolours. I enjoy not knowing what a friend's baby looks like until I meet them for the first time.

I also find some of my friends and family, well, I don't regularly see pictures of them, and I tend to remember them however I first saw them. They age, but my memory of them lives on.

This is very interesting to me. If you’re comfortable, I’d like to read more about this community / culture.

I understand this feeling. When I was younger I took a lot of time preparing and taking meaningless random pictures.

Years later I started taking pictures only with the people I was with.

Nowadays that smartphones got much better, I just start recording a video of the moments I think will be worth remembering, but without paying much attention to the frame, I just record and that’s it.

Years later when you watch them it feels much more vivid than watching a still dead photo.

While I certainly enjoy pictures of my friends and loved ones, I also deeply enjoy a few of the landscape photos I’ve taken. For me, I have a really really difficult time remembering a place or memory or situation unless I can recall the physical space I was in. A picture of a pretty vista and a few photos of the nearby surround area immediately helps me recall my feelings, who I was with, and the overall memory of the place, usually to great enjoyment

Made some sense when photos were expensive, but now they’re nearly free, less so.

It was never about scarcity, it was about setting up future-you to find those pictures (digitally or otherwise) and be reminded of the people you were with when you took them.

Only a problem if you took no people photos at all. Thankfully there is a middle ground between 0% and 100% people photos.

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