The surprising photographers behind Google screensavers

Stunning cityscapes. Serene shots of flowers. And vibrant underwater scenes.

If you’ve ever used a Google TV Streamer, a Nest Hub or another Google TV device, you’re probably familiar with the incredible photos that appear in the default ambient screensaver when your device goes idle. But you might not know that most of them aren’t the work of professional photographers…but instead are snapshots from employees at Google.

Originally, the team mainly sourced photos from a stock image marketplace, supplemented by additional shots from Googlers. “But back in 2020, we saw that people were asking on social media for more variety. So we restarted our photo curation process, where once a year during Q3, we ask Googlers in internal groups to submit their best shots,” says Alvin Shi, a software engineer who leads the curation process as a part-time project. “A panel of judges reviews the photos and selects the winners, and then we roll out all those photos to the rotation in January.”

When it comes to curating photos for our ambient screensaver, the judging panel uses a very different set of criteria than, say, a normal photography contest might. “We’re pretty discerning in how we choose. We want to make sure all the photos we present in the rotations are acceptable to all the users out there.” says Alvin. “And obviously, they also have to be good photos!”

One year, the team loved a photo of a tiger on the prowl, for example — but nixed it out of concern that the fierce photo would scare pets in a living room should it pop up. Simarily, a shot of a horse happily rolling in mud was initially selected but then removed after some users (who were unfamiliar with normal horse behavior) mistook the playful moment for a horse in distress.

Another unexpected factor that can rule out a photo for selection: being too interesting of a shot. By design, the ambient screensaver photos are all meant to feel cohesive and fade into the background. “Images that are too exciting kind of defeat the purpose of being in the background and being a calm ambient photo,” says Alvin. To that end, black and white photos, or pictures with very high dynamic ranges or high contrast are also usually eliminated, since they can be distractingly bright on HDR TV screens.

The judging panel consists of six to seven volunteers, to ensure a diverse taste of what constitutes a “good” photo. To actually choose the photos, each judge begins by selecting finalists from the albums that Googlers have submitted. Then, they gather together and rate the pictures (for added fairness, the judges can’t see the names of the Googlers who submitted each photo) with either a thumbs up, neutral or a thumbs down; to be selected, a photo needs to have gotten at least one thumbs up and no thumbs down, with about 50 or 60 photos a year making the cut.

While the incredible photos that Googlers submit make up the default feed, there’s also the option to choose your own albums from Google Photos in case you want to have a more personal touch — and soon, you’ll be able to spruce those up even further with fun Nano Banana edits, too.