The Baby Pictures Look Too Good

How the photos of my newborn are making me confront the world she'll grow up in.

Everybody wants to see baby pictures. I can’t blame them, she’s a very cute baby! Even just a month into her life, we’ve already decorated parts of the house with shots we’ve accumulated. But there’s a nagging feeling I have when I swipe through the dozens of photos on my phone, something I can’t shake. And when I have that feeling, I write about it here.

My mother kept several photo albums growing up. She still has all of them tucked away in a closet, collections of developed film from some disposable cameras and early digital shots when being able to zoom was the peak of technological innovation. There’s something about those old photos with the date printed in the bottom right corner that takes me back to a feeling, a specific time and place.

I’m wondering, will that happen with my baby’s pictures? They’re clean and crisp. The processing of the Google Pixel has given them their best shot at being Instagram ready, and the optical image stabilization means Dad’s shaky hands are immediately forgotten.

I don’t want to take it for granted, the ability to mark every “first” she experiences with such ease thanks to the camera that’s always in my pocket. Already we’ve captured a rare smile, her first walk, and the grumpiest looks because it was easy to quickly take it out and snap a few photos. I’m not going to go full boomer and say that it somehow detracts from the experience of having my phone out like that. My concentration is still where it should be, trust me.

But will the quality of the picture be better when she’s 5? 10? 20? Have we reached a near peak of capturing what the exact moment looked like? I doubt she’ll find the quality of her childhood photos charmingly bad like I do.

I’m confronting more than my own nostalgia. It’s a constant reminder of the new technology my daughter will have to contend with. Almost nothing will be given to her without setting up a login or some behind-the-scenes tracking she’ll half-heartedly agree to. It will take constant effort to shield her from targeted advertising and new AI initiatives.

Every time I see her pictures I know that our childhoods will be so distinct that I worry about my ability to keep up. My mother told me recently “you’ll be prepared for the ways you messed up as a kid, and be looking out for those. But she’ll invent ones you’re not ready for.” I understand the point, for sure. But I’m equally concerned about the invention of others. The invention of those that would improve an algorithm in the worst ways to further drive home the ironic isolation of the internet.

I know she can’t have my exact childhood, she’ll never blow into a cartridge of a video game to get it working again, or need to take a tape out of one machine to get it fully rewinded in another. It’s not better or worse, it’s just different. I just wish what she was going to contend with was a little more analog, or just a little more simple.

Am I overreacting to my daughter's pictures not being fuzzy enough? Maybe. I’ll slap a filter on them and see if it calms me down.