I Have Hundreds of Photos on My Phone. Now Some of Them Dance.

I have a folder on my phone full of old photos.

I’m guessing most people do.

There are holiday pictures, random selfies, photos that seemed like a good idea at the time, and a few that I honestly have no idea why I kept.

Some of them haven’t been opened in years.

Then one of those photos suddenly ended up in a video.

Not a slideshow.

Not one of those old-school photo edits.

The person in the photo was actually moving inside the video.

That feels a little strange the first time you see it.

We’re used to photographs being finished things. A person, a moment, a picture. Done.

And then you take that same face and suddenly it’s somewhere completely different.

The first thing you usually want to do is try another photo.

Then another.

Then you start thinking about your friends.

And before long, you’ve spent considerably more time doing this than you originally intended.

Holiday videos are a good example.

Christmas.

A birthday.

Father’s Day.

A professional holiday.

Something as specific as Firefighters’ Day.

There are plenty of occasions when you could send someone a normal message, but a short video with their face in it is just a little more interesting.

The funny part is that you don’t have to make the video yourself.

If you’ve ever tried recording a birthday message, you know how quickly a thirty-second idea turns into ten takes.

You start again because you stumbled over a word.

Then again because you don’t like your voice.

Then you notice something ridiculous in the background.

Eventually you think, “Never mind. I’ll just text them.”

A ready-made video avoids all of that.

You pick something.

Use a photo.

See what happens.

And suddenly you have a birthday greeting without having to become the host of your own television show.

Music videos are even more tempting.

At some point, most of us have watched a music video and thought, even for a second, “What would I look like in this?”

Usually that thought goes nowhere.

Now you can actually find out.

Maybe it works.

Maybe it looks ridiculous.

Maybe you watch it once and immediately send it to someone.

Honestly, the ridiculous ones can be the best.

These videos don’t always need to look completely serious.

If your face looks slightly strange in one scene, nobody is watching it for a scientific demonstration of visual effects.

If a very serious person suddenly appears in a dance video, that might actually be the whole joke.

That’s what makes the format more fun than it sounds on paper.

You’re not necessarily trying to make something believable.

You’re playing with the idea.

Here’s a photo.

Here’s a video.

What happens if I put the two together?

Sometimes the result is surprisingly good.

Sometimes you want to delete it immediately.

And sometimes you watch it and think:

“I have to send this to Sarah.”

That last one is probably the most useful result.

Because most of these videos aren’t really made for the video itself.

They’re made for someone.

A birthday greeting for your mom.

A joke for a friend.

Something for your dad on Father’s Day.

A Christmas surprise.

Or just a random message that says:

“Look what I did with your photo.”

It’s not really a new idea, if you think about it.

People have always liked putting themselves into other stories.

Photo booths.

Funny photo frames.

Photoshop edits.

Movie posters with someone’s face pasted into them.

AI just makes the process much quicker.

You already have the photo.

The video is already there.

The rest is basically curiosity.

And maybe that’s the most interesting part.

The old photos sitting on your phone suddenly have somewhere else to go.

A selfie you forgot about can become part of a holiday greeting a year later.

A photo from a trip can end up in a music video.

A perfectly ordinary picture can turn into something you send to a friend at eleven at night because, well, why not?

We take photos to remember things that actually happened.

Now we can also use those photos to create little moments that never happened at all.

There’s something pretty funny about that.

So if your phone is full of old photos nobody has looked at in years, there’s probably one in there worth bringing back.

It doesn’t have to become anything serious.

Sometimes it just needs to start dancing.