I’ve been uploading my smartphone photos to Google Photo for my last two phones. Earlier this week, I was in a meeting with some architects and I said that I really liked the way they do the showers at the Soho House in Berlin. They asked if I had a photo of them. I opened up Google Photos, typed “Soho House Berlin”, and got this result.
Sure enough, I had taken some photos of the shower. I showed them to the architects and we were able to talk about the features I liked in the shower. That was kind of magical because other than taking the photos, I had done nothing to tag or categorize them.
This works for all sorts of searches. I remember seeing a painting I really liked at The Hammer Museum in LA. A search on “Hammer Museum” produces the image I was looking for.
If you are looking for photos you took on a trip, you can do the same thing. Here are some photos I took of Grand Bazaar in Instanbul:
Google Photos isn’t perfect. Some searches that I would expect to work don’t. But it is pretty good.
Our portfolio company Clarifai has a similar service in an iOS app called Forevery. If you don’t want to upload your photos to Google Photo and want to search them locally on your iPhone, Forevery is a great way to get a similar experience. Forevery will also search your photos in Dropbox.
Since I’m on an Android right now, I am using Google Photos but I use both apps on my iPhone.
Photo search is amazing. You no longer need to create albums and tag and categorize your photos to be able to find them. You just search for them. Kind of like how email changed when Gmail arrived.
