Watching Black Mirror: Eulogy Made Me Rethink the 26,682 Photos on My Phone

Introduction

I recently watched Eulogy (Season 7, Episode 5 of Black Mirror), and it challenged me to reflect on how I take photos and the purpose behind taking them. It made me realise how mindlessly I snap photos and how it has led to a cluttered camera roll with diminished meaning.

Eulogy centers on Phillip, a solitary older man tasked with archiving memories of his late ex-girlfriend, Carol, by using immersive technology that allows him to enter moments captured in photographs. Each image acts as a gateway into a memory, revealing people, conversations, the mood—a 3D rendering of emotional time travel.

After watching, I went through my own camera roll—past travels, outings, and events—and imagined what it would be like to “reenter” each moment like Phillip. To my surprise, many were emotionally flat. Architecture in Rome. A beach view in Bangkok. They were cool places, but I didn’t remember how I felt, who I was with, or even why I took some of the pictures. It was blank. In Phillip’s mind, these would be empty rooms.

If only a year or two later, these moments already felt meaningless, what would happen when I was eighty, arthritis in my fingers, scrolling slowly through thousands of photos, trying to find proof of a life I lived? I’d probably die halfway through the highlight reel. 

Less is More

In Eulogy, Phillip had a handful of physical photos to revisit. That was enough.

I have 26,682. Isn’t being part of Gen Z just wonderful? 

I tell myself it’s fine to take a hundred in one go of me posing in various ways because I’ll delete the bad ones later. So there I am, same background, same moody smile, same outfit. A hundred times. 

But I never do delete the ‘bad’ ones; choosing just one feels like killing off my babies. Like it erodes the presence of the photos I do eventually keep. Like I’m diminishing a moment I was meant to cherish. But if I’d only taken one or two in the first place, I wouldn’t be haunted by the ones I didn’t keep. Maybe then one or two would’ve felt like enough.

It’s easy to spam the click button—it feels safe. But long-term, it’s suffocating. I’m buried under a digital mountain.

Even deleting feels like battling the Hydra: erase one, and three more appear the next day.

So I’ve started deleting. Really deleting. I ask: Does this spark joy? Would I smile at this when I’m 80? And now, I’m trying to take fewer photos—maybe five per event. Maybe even one.

Because if Phillip had thousands of printed photos to sort through in Eulogy? That episode would’ve been awkward. Definitely less poetic.

Presence > Proof

Phillip had all the proof of Carol’s life: the photos, letters, tokens. But he didn’t have presence. He missed her pain. He never read the final letter. He didn’t meet his daughter. The archive existed, but the relationship didn’t.

I’m guilty of that too.

Recently, a friend and I were strolling through the Huntington gardens in Los Angeles. I kept reaching for my phone, wanting to capture every perfect frame of the scenery with us in it. But he only agreed to take one photo together. I got frustrated and pouted like a child, dragging my feet, nudging him.

“It’s so pretty! Don’t you want to remember it?” I said.

He looked around, then back at me, “I am remembering it, by looking at it.”. 

While travelling in China last year, I noticed this wasn’t just my problem—every attraction was swarmed with people holding phones, angling for the perfect shot. It made you feel like you had to do the same, or risk missing out. Presence was optional. Proof was expected.

But my friend in LA had a fair point; what was the purpose of viewing an experience through your camera instead of just being in it? Isn’t that what Youtube videos or Google is for? 

Yet, the fear still creeps up in the back of my mind: What if I have nothing to look back on? What if I miss the perfect opportunity for a great photo? What if I have nothing to post later! ‘Will this look good as an Instagram post’ lingers in the back of my mind, me noting the angle of the sun every hour of the day, the number of clouds in the sky, and the aesthetic potential of a pretty view or wall as a backdrop. 

There’s also an element of habit. I’m now so used to snapping pictures at any whim that my phone is always in my hand, ready to go, rather than tucked away in pockets or bags.

I’m so busy trying to remember it all, I forget to live any of it.

It’s the Emotion that Matters

In Eulogy, Phillip is forced to re-experience the emotion behind each photo. The images aren’t just flat, they’re alive. Voices echo. Tension lingers. Regret bleeds through the frame. Because real memory doesn’t live in pixels. It lives in sound, tone, gesture—the things you can’t filter or frame.

Ironically, the most moving moment in the episode isn’t visual at all. It’s Carol’s cello recording—a piece of music that, decades later, brings Phillip to tears. No image could’ve captured that feeling. Because some memories aren’t photogenic. They live in sound, movement, energy; the way someone laughed, the silence between words, the feeling in the room.

When I scroll back, the photos that move me aren’t the prettiest. They’re the ones where joy spills from my eyes, not just my smile. The goofy group shots. The sunset I meditated to. The snap of a building that reminded me of a film I loved. The ones tied to a feeling.

The flat selfies? They leave me empty. Judgemental. Except for the occasional hot one—those get a pass.

But the pictures I cherish are the ones that meant something. Where something special happened behind the scenes. Where the memory lives in more than just the frame.

So maybe the rule isn’t fewer photos, but better reasons. Capture moments that move you, not just scenes that look good. For influencers, that might mean a perfectly staged aesthetic. For professionals, the craft is the joy. For me, it’s photos that make me feel—fully, viscerally, alive.

Conclusion

Photos help us remember, but they’re not the same as being there. Living the moment matters more than documenting it. Moving forward, I want to photograph with intention, asking:

Does this moment spark emotion?

Is this something my future self would smile at?

Am I trying to preserve a feeling, or prove something?

Fewer photos. More presence. And maybe, one day, when I’m old and sorting through what’s left of my digital memories, I won’t feel overwhelmed. Just grateful.