Patrick Pound, Melbourne-based artist whose collaborative work (with Rowan McNaught) 'The compound lens project' (2014–15) is on display in 'The photograph and Australia' The camera reduces the world to a list of things to photograph. That’s its default setting. Like a frottage of light the photograph lifts everything in its sights. To photograph is to collect images. Photography seems to quietly mutter: if only we could find all the pieces we might solve the puzzle. We are left to dwell in the bliss of the poetry of our continuous failure and the marvel of the photograph’s ability to casually copy the world in microcosm whilst making trouble for it in spades. The roll of film and the sim card are archives in waiting. Putting photos together offers the hope of coherence and the compensations of meaningful endeavour. To collect is to sort out your thoughts through things. This paper looks closely at collecting and sorting and making sense of snaps as if on a dare.