Beauty and Aging - How does Google Photos define "Beauty"?

 

Beautiful BB on her 70th Birthday

This month I'm blogging about Healthy Aging in honor of Older Americans Month. As loyal readers know, I often use the Special Days  as prompts and it turns out, today, May 19 is Turn Beauty Inside Out Day.

Even though the day is more about instilling confidence in young girls that true beauty comes from within, it's a good reminder for all of us Older Americans as well.  In fact, fear of losing our good looks is undoubtedly one of the big reasons people don't like to be reminded of getting older.

Well, I find this topic very interesting and, as is my usual practice when starting a new blog post, I started out by trying to find a photo from my Google Photos Library.  Unlike yesterday, when I searched for the word "Conscientious" and came up with nothing, this morning, when I searched for "Beauty" there were so many beautiful pictures to choose from!

I'm so curious about what kind of algorithm Google Photos uses to come up with the pictures representing "beauty."  There were pictures of flowers, landscapes, and smiling people of all ages and genders.  Mind you, only a subset of my very large library were chosen..  there are many others that, for whatever reason, didn't make the cut when the filter was "beauty."   

However, I happily perused the many photos that Google deemed representative of "beauty" and had to agree that these indeed were beautiful people and beautiful memories.  How could I choose just one to represent this blog post?

Well, I decided I'd write a little series of blog posts. I'll be having my second cataract surgery tomorrow and will have to be off the grid again for a couple of days, so I'll get a couple in the pipeline.

The Beauty picture I picked for today is one taken of my friend Becky (or BB) on her 70th birthday. I just love how Becky doesn't shy away from celebrating birthdays. She happily wore the celebratory tiara and sash proclaiming her 70th birthday that I'd given her with pride!

Becky is a great example of someone who is bold, sassy, and energetic! She is nothing like the stereotypical "older person" that I think many people imagine.  

I know I shouldn't judge people who don't like to celebrate birthdays..  anyone is allowed to be a "party pooper"..  but I have to say, I love it when people embrace their special day and happily celebrate!  Maybe it's that ability to let out our inner-child and say, "Yay! Happy Birthday to ME!" that helps us stay young! 

I was lucky enough to be with Becky on her 70th birthday, December 7th, and was able to join her on some of her Florida adventures across the state!  Here's a little video that was included in the Google Photos Beauty cut:

And one more that made the cut with BB and me, looking beautiful, getting ready for a Karaoke scavenger hunt challenge:

I just love how Becky has this natural, contagious laugh.  Good job, Google Photos Algorithm! (I'm guessing it might have been the tiara and sash, but ya gotta admit, that laugh is the most beautiful part of all!)

I will continue my series with a few more goodies that Google Photos felt represented "Beauty" (and that I pick as following the theme of Healthy Aging), but I wanted to start with my most loyal blog reader, Becky.

Becky, I hope you are happy that I think of you as an iconic example of beauty, healthy aging, and birthday celebrator extraordinaire!