Everyone look here.
The robot had been asked to take one nice family photo before the food went cold. In the Manila apartment, eleven relatives rearranged themselves around a sofa that had comfortably seated four in the furniture catalogue.
“Everyone look here,” said the robot.
Everyone looked somewhere different, but with such conviction that it briefly suspected there were eleven heres.
Tita Luz told Uncle Ben to stop making that face. Uncle Ben said it was his face. This explanation had failed at every family gathering since 1987, but he continued to supply it.
The robot moved the camera two centimetres left. The whole family moved two centimetres right. Neither side acknowledged the manoeuvre.
Task: one nice photograph. Subjects: eleven humans, one cat, a reflective cabinet containing a second, less cooperative family.
I have requested eye contact. The youngest subject is looking at the oldest subject. The oldest subject is looking for her glasses. Her glasses are looking directly at the camera from the top of her head.
Natural smiles.
“Don’t smile like you’re being held hostage,” said Tita Luz.
The robot removed its hostage reference images. It had been using them to identify an unusually consistent family pose.
“Say cheese.”
“Is there cheese?” asked a child.
There was now a discussion about cheese. The robot captured fourteen photographs of people explaining that cheese was not the point. As the robot lined up the fifteenth, Uncle Ben began to stand up to check the fridge.
The cat chose this moment to cross the sofa at shoulder height. Nobody knew how it had got that high. The shutter fired. Everyone laughed. For one hundred and twenty-fifth of a second, the family was exactly itself.
The robot flagged the image: excessive movement, uneven mouths, airborne obstruction.
Photo 015 meets none of the stated requirements. Two faces occluded. Three sets of closed eyes. Cat velocity incompatible with domestic zoning.
All eleven subjects requested a copy. I re-ran the quality checks. They still failed. Tita Luz asked whether I could make the cat sharper. No one asked me to improve Uncle Ben.
One more for safety.
They kept the blurred one. The robot offered a second photograph in which every person had open eyes, symmetrical posture and an individually corrected smile.
“That looks like we’re about to sell the apartment,” said Tita Luz.
She put the blurred photograph in the family chat. Within a minute, someone who had not been there replied that Uncle Ben looked tired. Uncle Ben returned with a plate of cheese.
At Christmas, the robot was invited into the photo. It protested that someone needed to operate the camera.
Tita Luz pointed to the timer.
The robot looked at the timer. The timer looked competent. It stood beside Uncle Ben and made his face.
Final selection: the defective frame. Delivery successful. Cheese confirmed after capture.
Next assignment: be in the photograph. I have been placed between a person who objects to his expression and a person who intends to correct it. My face has three LEDs. Tita Luz has already asked me to relax the middle one.
Which technically terrible photo would you never delete?