Tiny Photos, Big Picture
Joshua Kaufman
Tiny Pictures, Inc.

This is about
I. Where snapshot photography came from
II. What current trends and research are saying
III. Where should we be going?

Part I: From photographs to pervasive images
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whsimages/

In the beginning there was the photograph
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whsimages/

Kodak Brownie, 1900
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whsimages/

Kodacolor negative film, 1942
http://www.flickr.com/photos/whsimages/

Polaroid Model 95A, 1948
http://www.flickr.com/photos/captkodak

Fujifilm Quicksnap, 1986
http://www.pma-show.com/

Fujifilm DS-1P, 1988
http://www.photo-gallery.dk/

The cameraphone, 1997
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameraphone/,

Portraits

Travel photos

Event photos

Candids

This is photography as we (mostly) know it
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pigstyave/

The Polaroid
http://www.flickr.com/photos/master_of_felix/

The LOMO
http://www.flickr.com/photos/steffe/

The Digital Camera
http://www.flickr.com/photos/captkodak/

The Cameraphone

What the cameraphone is enabling
• Capturing the ordinary not just “Kodak Moments”
• Topics of conversation; “neta”
• Remote presence
• Intimate and personal sharing, but ephemeral

Memory

Social context

Self presentation

Self expression

Functional

A desire to share photography
http://www.flickr.com/photos/coxy/

Part II: The big experiment

Limitations of current photo sharing sites
(in the context of cameraphone photography)
• Most are optimized for viewing on a PC
• Optimized for archiving and organizing
• Not optimized for chronology and conversation

Measuring the success of sharing services
• (Low) Complexity
• Conversation
• Chronology
• Context

“Flickr for mobile phones”

\"The photo is a message that is delivered across
multiple platforms\"
:(

“The player is the delivery channel.”
:(

“Twitter works. Let’s just add photos!”

“The chronology and context matter.”

“Conversation is king.”

Emerging cameraphone photo sharing themes
• Location aware
• “Level of interest” and new kinds of context
• Tagging
• Synchronous sharing

Part III: New Directions
(five suggestions for continuing the experiment)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/philliecasablanca/

1. Empower the now in your designs

2. Create new ways to visualize photos

3. Improve context recognition

4. Let cameraphone images be cameraphone images

5. Take more photos with your cameraphone!

(Bonus) Pretend you are from the future

Thanks
Joshua Kaufman
joshua@tinypictures.us
tinypictures.us
joshuakaufman.org