Phosphene
2 min read
A phosphene is the light you see with your eyes shut, the optic nerve firing with nothing in front of it. I was in bed, half asleep, lights dancing on the inside of my eyelids, and I had an idea:
A camera that shoots triptychs: a picture, a poem, and an image generated from the poem, side by side.
The first version was build from my phone, in bed, that very night. I SSH'ed into my laptop, and used tmux to start a Claude Code session that would run with a /goal. By morning I had an app waiting for me.
The capture and the poem run on-device, on an iPhone 17 Pro Max, on Apple's foundation models, no external API for that part, where Poetry Camera and Paragraphica both reach out to one. The image is the exception: it's painted on Apple's Private Cloud Compute, which needs a connection. With no signal Phosphene will shoot and write the poem on the spot, then paint the image later once service comes back. Mostly local. I might switch models down the line, but for now this works.
Currently, the poems suck. They're flat, and lack anything that feels. The generated images look like stock slop. But it's fun anyway, and I'm not done with it. I'll likely introduce other models down the line, which will improve the outputs.
The high pines drag their needles across a sharp blue sky. In the clearing, the wooden stage sits heavy in the shade— all this timber gathered to hold a crowd, and the forest is the only thing looking down.
clear daylight from the west, overcast, heavy grey sky
The wind shatters the noon into a million flashing coins. At the rim, the dark pines refuse the bribe. High up, a single scrap of cloud forgets what it came to spill.
harsh overhead light, short shadows, thin clear mountain air, sharp distance, overcast, heavy grey sky
The water folds against a wall of pine. A million needles swallow up the noon, keeping their dark against a glaring sky— leaving the stripped stone at the summit to burn alone.
harsh overhead light, short shadows, thin clear mountain air, sharp distance, overcast, heavy grey sky
Noon pins the pine shadows tight to the dirt. Down on the baking asphalt, four white letters order an absolute halt— a desperate rule drawn at the shore, as if the heavy blue water was planning to leave.
harsh overhead light, short shadows, thin clear mountain air, sharp distance, overcast, heavy grey sky
The road paints its white panic on the asphalt just short of the pines. STOP, it orders the midday heat— as if the deep mountain water gave a damn where our pavement ends.
harsh overhead light, short shadows, thin clear mountain air, sharp distance, overcast, heavy grey sky
The broken log holds the sky,
while the stump listens to the edge of quiet —
light bleeding through the tops of trees
and the earth exhales, unbroken.
clear daylight from the east, thin clear mountain air, sharp distance, overcast, heavy grey sky