I believe so. I'd imagine the image has to be uploaded to Google Photos as well, since most of their nice features like personal tagging require that.

Part of the reason I switched to an iPhone was for all the on device stuff that Google insists you use the cloud for.

Same, the google phones just absolutely hated that I went into airplane mode frequently but still wanted to do things like listen to music, view and edit notes, etc. God forbid I try to add to my shopping list while camping.