I have a lot of photos on my phone.
To be precise, there are so many that it’s getting a bit out of hand.
There are travel photos.
Photos from family gatherings.
Photos from friends’ birthdays.
Photos of the sky, coffee, flowers, and some that I thought were important at the time but now can’t figure out why I took them at all.
Among them are also a huge number of shots that are almost identical.
The same person.
The same pose.
The same background.
It’s just that in the first one, someone has their eyes closed; in the second, they’re looking to the side; and in the third, they’re finally looking at the camera—but then someone else starts talking.
So we ended up taking twelve shots in a row.
Not even the last one was truly perfect.
But we kept all twelve of them.
I often tell myself that one day I’ll organize these photos.
Delete the duplicates.
Create albums.
Pick out my favorites.
Maybe even print a few and put them in frames.
“One day” must be a very busy person.
Because she’s never shown up.
The photos keep piling up.
Every time my phone alerts me that storage is running low, I reluctantly delete a few blurry screenshots and restaurant menus.
Then I keep taking more.
Sometimes, to find a photo from two years ago, I have to scroll through my album for ages.
Along the way, I come across countless moments I’ve long forgotten.
A dinner.
A walk.
Someone’s hairstyle back then.
A room that’s since been redecorated.
These photos are right there on my phone, yet they’re rarely truly seen.
One weekend, I decided to pick twenty photos to print.
Not to organize them all.
I know myself well enough to realize that “organizing all my photos” is a project I’d likely give up on completely after just three hours.
I’d just pick twenty.
The criteria for choosing them were simple:
When I look at them, they’d remind me of a specific moment.
I didn’t pick the photos where everyone was standing perfectly in line.
Nor did I choose only the ones with the most beautiful lighting.
I chose a photo of my mother smiling so broadly that her eyes were almost closed.
A photo of a friend cutting a cake in the kitchen, with the countertop looking messily authentic.
A photo of a rainy street taken during a trip.
And a photo of my family sitting in the yard chatting—a moment without any significant event.
Once I held the photos in my hands, they felt completely different from how they looked on the screen.
They became tangible objects that actually took up space.
They could be touched.
They could be placed in picture frames.
And they could naturally spark a story when guests came over.
I put a few photos in the living room.
I placed one on my desk.
The rest I put in a photo album.
Later, when my family saw one of the photos, they said:
“I’d completely forgotten that this happened that day.”
We stood there and retold the story of that day.
Who was late.
Who spilled the drink.
Who insisted they didn’t have their eyes closed in the photo, even though the evidence was undeniable.
That photo didn’t bring the past back.
But it opened a small door.
I’m starting to realize that taking photos and preserving memories aren’t exactly the same thing.
Taking photos is easy.
We can snap dozens of them in a matter of seconds.
What’s really hard is looking back.
Selecting.
Telling a story.
Making sure a moment isn’t just lost somewhere among thousands of photos.
Now, I still take a lot of photos.
Some of them are still unnecessary.
I probably don’t need to document the same cup of coffee from four different angles.
But I’ve started selecting a few photos to print every so often.
I don’t strive for completeness.
Nor do I try to organize every year like an archive.
I simply let a handful of important moments leave my phone and enter real life.
My phone’s photo album holds a lot of things.
But a photo sitting on my desk actively reminds me as I walk by:
Here’s a time when you were truly living life to the fullest.
The best memories aren’t usually the clearest or most perfect photos.
Rather, they’re the ones that, when someone sees them, make them say right away:
“Oh my gosh, do you remember that day?”
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