Annotations are associated with individual digital pictures that represent a characteristic of the pictures, such as their content, place of taking, etc. An annotation is directly entered into a digital camera and selected for association with pictures to be taken after that. The association of the selected annotation occurs automatically within the camera until another annotation is selected. An annotation is preferably entered into the camera by the voice of the user prior to taking pictures that are characterized by the annotation. The pictures may then be conveniently sorted by subject matter through use of the annotations. The same technique may be used to annotate audio segments.