¶I can’t share every photo here so I’ve decided to select 25 images, one for each day that is my favorite of that day but I highly encourage you to browse through the album linked above.
¶I’ve struggled for years with the question of whether or not to add a concept of photo albums to Daystream. As I’ve envisioned it, this hypothetical feature would allow a user to upload a group of related photos that would appear as a group in a day view. All your photos from a birthday party would appear as a single entry on a day view, as a mosaic or behind a cover image, for example. Adding this feature would be relatively easy from a technical standpoint and the processing and storage resources that would be required don’t appear to be deal-breakers (at least with our current number of users). So my struggle on this is not a technical or economic one.
¶I’m not sure I knew the real cause of hesitation, though, until it hit me this morning after reading this post from Adam Chandler. Turns out, it’s pretty simple — I want to be a reader, not an editor. I like reading stories that include a relatively small number of photos selected by the author as favorites (as Adam did) or representative of a point being made. Adam’s post here, which includes 30 of his favorite photos that he selected from thousands he took during his trip, allowed me to read (and view) his story, as told by him. I didn’t have to sift through a digital pile looking for photos I liked. I read his story; I didn’t have to edit it or assemble it myself. And I loved it.
¶That’s true on the other side of the story, too. As a teller of stories, I want to tell the story I want to tell. Period.
¶That being said, Adam also uploaded all of his keepers to a Flickr album, giving people the option of sifting through the pile. I suspect few people will but the people who do probably greatly appreciate Adam’s decision to make the album available.
¶So, for now, I’m not adding an album feature to Daystream. I love photography and the power of story as told by text and still images, one after another. That type of storytelling is at the core of Daystream and photo albums seem to add an extra layer that hinders that a bit. Maybe I’ll start linking to Flickr albums in a “if you’re interested, here’s the entire pile” sort of way.
¶As an aside, the WSJ article I posted about yesterday is a nice piece that uses text and a small number of snapshot-like images in an effective way to tell an interesting story. It’s well done.
