zarathu Loc: Bar Harbor, MDI, Maine

How many of you can see your photo club heading toward a spit?

More and more people who know nothing about photography, and don’t want to know about it because they have an AI Phone that does everything for them, are joining clubs.

I see a not too distant future where clubs are going to specify that people can do as much editing as they want, but they have to show that they actually took the photo, and used the tools to take the photo(a camera not an AI Phone), and the editing tool brushes and app, not Mid-Journey, or completely with their iPhone.

People will get together to show the photos that their AI’s made for them.

I saw a recent show by a person who may know nothing about photography or editing. She/he/it took everything with his/her/their iPhone 13 and then printed the photos and called them their own. Realistically they were not their photos, they were images that the AI phone made when they pointed it in a certain direction.

This is troubling to a geezer like me. But it's endemic of a lot of areas where creativity is being given up because it's too much work. And it's too much work because AI’s have taken over and are doing things for them.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Is AI not creativity?
Painters said the same about photography.

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

Phone cameras are cameras and take photographs. Do you object if someone takes photos with a dedicated camera on full auto? What is the difference? The phone doesn't choose the subject and lighting or make the composition. I can see objecting to AI apps which create images from text descriptions, but those aren't photographs anyway.

delder Loc: Maryland

My honest opinion is that, BEFORE we head in that divisive direction,
We should consider all the automation/processing provided by a modern DSLR and ESPECIALLY the Mirrorless cameras now available.
IF you want to go back to the distant past, we would still be using external light meters etc.
My closest approximation today is shooting my D3100 with a VINTAGE E series 50mm F1.18 lens. All manual!

Bill_de Loc: US

---

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

-

zarathu Loc: Bar Harbor, MDI, Maine

One is a tool that you control. The other is a tool that you have no control over. Its not creativity if you have a robot following you around, and you point out a scene to the robot and say, “Take that”, and then sell them as your work. It’s the AI’s work. It not your work. You did not decide on the aperture, the shutter speed, and the ISO combination. You did not decide how you wanted it printed.

This is a major reason I am very pessimistic about humans staying around much longer. They don’t understand how their ability to do all aspects of a process is what makes them creative about it. It's not creative if you walk around and point to things and say, “that looks nice”.

When I was a wedding photographer, I could take 140 photos, with film on a 220 medium format roll, having to change the film every 30 photos. I needed to know enough about the process to take 140 great photos. With digital tools now, wedding photographers take three thousand photos, and hope they got 140 good ones.

My bottom line is that if you have a tool you use it. I have problem with some tools which I can’t use because I have no control over the outcome.

But I just had the same argument with my family. They believed that they were photographers because they pointed their robot at a scene and it took a great shot. Are you a doctor if you have symptoms that don’t have a drug for them or surgery for it, and then the “doctor” can’t help you solve the problem because they have nothing to make the symptoms go away with. Photographers are people who know enough about the subject to modify things when its not the way they wanted.

So we will have groups of people who call themselves photographers, because they get together to share the photos that their robot took for them.

Pretty soon there will be robot painters. You go to a scene with a robot and it paints it for you. People who do that will consider themselves painters.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

..." creativity is being given up because it's too much work...."

You are interpreting those actions through your personal lens. The folks doing the actions don't think in terms of work, they think in terms of play. They don't care about the history of photography, and there's no reason they should care. Let the young'uns march to their own drummer

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

Again, do you have the same objection to people who use DSLRs or Mirrorless Digital cameras on full auto? That option goes back to film cameras.

brentrh Loc: Deltona, FL

AI produces a photograph. Does not matter if it came from a phone, SLR or Mirrorless camera. Digital cameras give you more control over your image. Internal light meters in cameras were never challenged as not being a photograph. AI is a tool all the rules of photography like exposure triangle and others still apply. It is still the eye of the photographer that makes the difference. Don't fall into the trap by purist who would stop you from creating a photograph the way you want to. They are the people who wanted to ban the automobile.

delder Loc: Maryland

I agree! We just have a far greater toolset then we did when the first [Camera Obscura] came out. Images then had to be traced and painted to provide a permanent image.
IF we really want to whine about TRUE AI photography, let's look @ what China is doing with it's Security Cameras and facial recognition.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Whenever a new technology appears on the "imaging" scene, it creates panic. The doomsayers always prognosticate "THIS, whatever it is, will be the demise of photography as we know and love it and we will all be replaced by automatons"!

My particular philosophy is simple. Wahtever it is, it's just another tool or methodology. Even if it does not interest me directly, I always hope that some aspect of it will seep into the existing array of tools and techniques and make them better.

Some of the technology and trends can be more concerning to professional photographers. Perhaps corporate and commercial clients will switch to AI-generated images. Many expressed fear when stock photo agencies surfaced. All that happened is that the photographers had to increase their levels of quality and serve to stay in business and the hacks did not survive.

If you are a hobbyist, advanced enthusiast, or in it strictly for the art, you needn't worry- You can do whatever you want. You can shoot film, digital, or make tintypes. Nobody can tell you what to do or force any new technology on you.

My question is, why do folks always have to be divisive, and form cults, tribes, and fan clubs when it comes to creative work? If your camera club has folks interested in AI, create a section for them, at least for competitions. Exchange ideas and learn rather the shun folks who want to try something different.

The synthesizer did not replace every musical instrument. Some bands, groups, and symphony orchestras may utilize them but the true artists and fine musical instruments still prevail.

TonyP Loc: New Zealand

'The synthesizer did not replace every musical instrument. Some bands, groups, and symphony orchestras may utilize them but the true artists and fine musical instruments still prevail.'
Good analogy.

joehel2 Loc: Cherry Hill, NJ

If the starting point for the finished product is a photograph, the editing method, PS or AI, doesn’t change it from being photography. Why is editing out people and objects from photos any different from adding a person or object.

goldstar46 Loc: Tampa, Fl

=========================================================

Fully Agreed zarathu........

As for me, I actually can see the day when there will be the "Function" of "Tagging" A.I. Photos by the software which created them......

Kind of Like the "Good House Keeping Seal" of "NON-Real" status

Just saying... Don't know where or when, but it will happen


Cheers
Goldstar46
George Veazey
###