many faces many stories

been playing with Picasa 3 today, which scans my computer for pictures.  with face detection function turned on, it automatically finds faces in the photos, shows them all, and lets me tag them.  it is pretty smart – once i tag it with a name, picasa will most likely recognize the face going forward. it turns out an interesting experience.

well it not only scans for people i know, it captured many many passers-by whom i never paid attention to.  i am surprised it was able to find faces in shop window reflection too! looking at hundreds of faces with all kinds of expressions, beautiful or ugly, i feel like sitting in a bar or a McDonald’s people-watching.   it is a bit scary, though, to think that so many strangers are hiding in the corner of my hard drive.

since i have my primary school, middle school and college group photos in my computer, i am brought to see many kids and young people’s smiles.    we were so innocent, happy and young.  how some of us have changed!  --  maybe not, otherwise how come Picasa was able to guess the 10-year old girl was actually me? i thought i looked different.  computer algorithm must be focusing on something else beyond human subjective impression?

and this review of faces reminds me of people that i haven’t thought of for years, such as a teacher that left a dark shadow on my youthful memories (but i apparently grew out of it) and i guess i can forgive her now.  A couple of people have died.  it is weird to think that they no longer exists in this world. 

i went to see a photography exhibition at the art musuem and took a couple of pictures of Marc Rebound’s wroks that i found interesting.  Picasa also managed to find some faces from his pictures, including chairman mao, zhou enlai, and red guards in the Cultural Revolution.  to see their heads side by side with regular current people i know.  it is odd.

Picasa also found:  1. a few monkeys; 2. Jesus from churches; 3. buddhas or folklore gods in temples; 4. human face pattern in wall decoration; 5. models in street posters; 6. Obama on people’s t-shirt; 7. buddhas in tangka; 8. pottery figures in Xi’an museum; 9. artists like Green Day or Grasshoppers; 10. icehockey or rugby players 11. Hu jintao and Wen Jiabao (from a painting shop in shenzhen) – it is very interesting to see the faces of all of them with equal size side to side. 

Or even a little ironic.