A shared photo wall for a reunion

Guests are not limited to what they photograph on the night. Choosing from the gallery works just as well for a scanned class photograph already saved on a phone, or a photo of an old print someone brought along, as it does for a picture taken minutes ago. The two end up in the same album, in the order they were added, rather than the old ones staying in a separate box that never gets scanned.

A class reunion tends to run on recognition: matching a face twenty years on to a face in a yearbook. A wall in the room, cycling through what people are adding as the evening goes on, gives everyone something to look at together and talk about, which does more for a room of half-remembered classmates than photographs staying on individual phones until someone gets round to a group chat afterwards.

A family reunion often spans more generations than any other kind of gathering, from grandparents to children too young to hold a phone themselves. The guest page needs nothing beyond a phone's camera, so a grandparent can add a photograph as easily as anyone else, and the wall gives the youngest generation something to point at that connects them to relatives they have only just met.

The guest link is not limited to a code on a table. Sent by text, WhatsApp or email to someone who could not travel, it opens the same guest page, so a relative on the other side of the world can still add an old photograph, or simply see the album once it is over.