Is AI the end of photography?

ancient_mariner said:
In fairness to him, the talk around the picture and then seeing it in isolation certainly poisoned my view of the image. Some pictures can generally stand alone, but that one absolutely needs context and knowledge to have value.
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To me that picture has a sort of prosaic tenderness in itself - as well as being a cultural statement about what's worthy of attention (the answer is everything - not that everything would make a photograph).

In the light of the above, and its self-contained aesthetic, to me it can stand alone as required. I can imagine it as a framed print on the wall ... the texture of the paper; the lustre of the dyes or inks ...
 
I write as a job, mainly about marketing. AI in the heading and body is great for SEO, and I’ve covered AI-created copy and images ad nauseam over recent months. My thoughts.

Stock photography is not dead, but it’s not very well in general. For some requirements, AI is brilliant. I have written a book on prostrate cancer (mine!) and the cover was a struggle until I opted for AI. The good news is that AI images are appalling, maybe even dangerous, for publication, the main problem being the source material. The internet is flooded, now more than ever, with inappropriate images.

For research, I used a well known stock image supplier (others are available) and searched for an office scene, something generic, with smiling, happy people helping one another. You know, the antithesis of reality. I did the same with a popular AI regurgitator. The differences were marked.

In a world where the wrong pronoun can cost a company a fortune, let alone being cancelled, for images used on websites, in blogs and marketing emails, the old adage, ‘You can’t be too careful’ is only too right. Misogyny and racism is not so much rampant on the internet, but the norm. Not to say the main provider. AI frequently follows this norm. Decent quality stock images will show racially and sexually mixed people, and families outside the normal make-up, AI not so much, mainly sticking two middle fingers up at modern sensibilities.

As a writer, you’d expect me to say AI still has a long way go. And you’d be spot on. I have a daughter-in-law who runs what used to be a very large SEO content company. Covid hit her company hard, and AI has made it worse. However, she still makes an excellent living by correcting supplied AI copy. Companies she had contracts with supply her with their downloads and she charges them for putting it into English. She personally makes as much money as ever, but she’s trying to move away from SEO copy, but while AI provides her with an easy income, she’ll milk it.

Stock photography is changing. Has changed. We have to move with it, just not quite so far as the doomsayers say.
 
For those, like me, who have no idea what "SEO" is, it's an acronym for "search engine optimization" and it's a catch all for putting things on the web that a search engine will rank highly.

I'm sure everyone wanted to know that... :naughty: :coat:

Using a computer on the train.JPG
 
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AndrewFlannigan said:
For those, like me, who have no idea what "SEO" is, it's an acronym for "search engine optimization" and it's a catch all for putting things on the web that a search engine will rank highly.

I'm sure everyone wanted to know that... :naughty: :coat:

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The other day I wondered why taking photos of SEOs was such a big thing, and I wondered how it was actually possible, until I realised id didn't mean Search Engine Optimisation :)
 
Sangoma said:
The other day I wondered why taking photos of SEOs was such a big thing, and I wondered how it was actually possible, until I realised id didn't mean Search Engine Optimisation :)
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I've worked with a few, most of whom are very nice people.
 
Sorry about using jargon. Thank you all for hardly mentioning it. Feel reassured that it's a bit like the texts I receive from my grandkids. It'd be easier if they did it in Greek, 'cause at least then I could run it past Google Translate.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
petapixel.com

Magnum Photographer Couldn't Shoot in Russia, So He Controversially Used AI Instead

Carl De Keyzer has faced a backlash.
petapixel.com petapixel.com

What an utter tool. Fake news doesn't get any more fake than this
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But the photographs aren't trying to be, or pretending to be news. It's clearly stated it's an experiment with AI, where the AI has been trained with the photographers own photographs.

They are certainly "fake" photographs, but how are they fake "news"

As the photographer says:

"...AI might give me a chance to create the project in my head"


And they have been published in a book called "Putin's Dream"; not published as news photographs
 
myotis said:
But the photographs aren't trying to be, or pretending to be news. It's clearly stated it's an experiment with AI, where the AI has been trained with the photographers own photographs.

They are certainly "fake" photographs, but how are they fake "news"

As the photographer says:

"...AI might give me a chance to create the project in my head"


And they have been published in a book called "Putin's Dream"; not published as news photographs
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Very different story, not really anything wrong with that, in fact a positive
 
Writewheel said:
I have a daughter-in-law who runs what used to be a very large SEO content company. Covid hit her company hard, and AI has made it worse. However, she still makes an excellent living by correcting supplied AI copy. Companies she had contracts with supply her with their downloads and she charges them for putting it into English. She personally makes as much money as ever, but she’s trying to move away from SEO copy, but while AI provides her with an easy income, she’ll milk it.
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That is really interesting my brother owns a web design and S.E.O business and his business absolutely exploded over covid. Before covid he had one office and 2 full time employee's, he now has 4 offices and 34 full time employee's. With so many businesses having to move to having more of an online business, covid was the best thing that ever happened to him. So much so, he now has people looking after the S.E.O business which has allowed him to pursue other things. He has been able to set up another non S.E.O business and his own online presence has resulted in him now working as a presenter for the BBC making documentaries. He has made 2 so far and is just about to start filming on the third one.

From everything he has said to me most of his S.E.O competitors businesses also scaled up over covid and covid was very good for them as well. I guess it depends on the type of content that your daughters company was producing, there has been a major shift towards video content and that is something his business is very good at as everything is done in house. For written S.E.O stuff they use A.I as well but they also employ copy writers to edit and make it work better but A.I just helps make the process of producing copy much faster. They don't use any A.I images they have their own photographers and videographers.
 
f/2.8 said:
That is really interesting my brother owns a web design and S.E.O business and his business absolutely exploded over covid. Before covid he had one office and 2 full time employee's, he now has 4 offices and 34 full time employee's. With so many businesses having to move to having more of an online business, covid was the best thing that ever happened to him. So much so, he now has people looking after the S.E.O business which has allowed him to pursue other things. He has been able to set up another non S.E.O business and his own online presence has resulted in him now working as a presenter for the BBC making documentaries. He has made 2 so far and is just about to start filming on the third one.

From everything he has said to me most of his S.E.O competitors businesses also scaled up over covid and covid was very good for them as well. I guess it depends on the type of content that your daughters company was producing, there has been a major shift towards video content and that is something his business is very good at as everything is done in house. For written S.E.O stuff they use A.I as well but they also employ copy writers to edit and make it work better but A.I just helps make the process of producing copy much faster. They don't use any A.I images they have their own photographers and videographers.
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Thanks for taking the time to reply.

My daughter's business was largely, meaning most income, with national (UK) and international (EU) companies, the majority of which were car-based. She also did a number of travel companies. Less money, but lots of perks. My son reckoned they'd not paid for a holiday until Covid, apart from the honeymoon, which he insisted he paid for. He picked a quaint and picturesque Greek place, and when they had their first meal, the maitre d' said it was on the house. He asked how they knew they were on honeymoon, and the bloke said it wasn't that; he'd recognised his wife as a travel writer/blogger.

Covid hit her company hard, for obvious reasons, and I don't think she wanted to shed staff again. She was in a couple of promotional films made by state-sponsored companies, one in the Caribbean, but there was no part for some old bloke unfortunately. Now they have two children the travelling is not so attractive a proposition, and she hasn't pushed it post-lockdowns. She still gets recognised though. I used to be a police officer, for 30 years, and I still get recognised by some of my prisoners when I'm in Brighton, but there's a big difference between those who recognise her and the old lags who tell me about their last time in prison.
 
Very interesting! AI is defo a Big thing in photography landscape.

We are launching an MA Photography Online for UAL proposing teaching about AI element in photography and how to apply in photography.

We are conducting a research on this, if you are interested to participate and listen to other people discuss about this, please feel free to sign up from the link below

https://arts.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0iTIhooigeLfASq
 
Kimbui said:
Very interesting! AI is defo a Big thing in photography landscape.

We are launching an MA Photography Online for UAL proposing teaching about AI element in photography and how to apply in photography.

We are conducting a research on this, if you are interested to participate and listen to other people discuss about this, please feel free to sign up from the link below

https://arts.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0iTIhooigeLfASq
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That link looks dodgy
 
This is a research project related to AI and photography. Lindsay has checked out the link and approved it, but thank you those who reported this - we can never be too careful..
 
ancient_mariner said:
This is a research project related to AI and photography. Lindsay has checked out the link and approved it, but thank you those who reported this - we can never be too careful..
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Strangely, the first couple of times I tried it, it took me to a MS login page, now it goes to a UAL page!!.
That, plus the unspecified "we" and the way the post was written persuaded me to look no further :)

Pleased to hear it is genuine though.
 
Yes AI screws with real Photography. I am the admin of the only PROPERLY moderated Macro PAGE on FB WITH more than 78,000 members. The number of people who have no idea what macro is, and aren’t interested in knowing because they only use phones is phenomenal. I remove far more posts than I let thru.

I have a friend who has published several nature photography books who claims that her phone pictures are as good as my 40 image focus merged photos from 45 MP full frame shots. I cannot convince her how inferior they are.
 
zarathu said:
Yes AI screws with real Photography. I am the admin of the only PROPERLY moderated Macro PAGE on FB WITH more than 78,000 members. The number of people who have no idea what macro is, and aren’t interested in knowing because they only use phones is phenomenal. I remove far more posts than I let thru.

I have a friend who has published several nature photography books who claims that her phone pictures are as good as my 40 image focus merged photos from 45 MP full frame shots. I cannot convince her how inferior they are.
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Well, there's the rub. Photos only have to be good enough. Despite what we may think. Sometimes it's a bitter pill to swallow.
 
rob-nikon said:
Even for a hobby if it was just about getting the photo I could sit at the computer and get some great AI images without the early starts or venturing out into the cold. In the future will we see ‘AI photographers’?
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AI needn't directly affect the hobby of those who just like making images of real things, but the consequences of AI's effect elsewhere will almost certainly be huge and will eventually have implications for us.

I'd be worried were I a commercial photographer. Lots of published material of all kinds, general interest, news, advertising, whatever, uses photographic illustration. Why will publishers pay for photography or even stock images when AI can generate something useable, free?

We have already seen a huge impact on the camera industry from every cell phone being a camera phone. Family snapshots are presumably now 99% phone pictures. I'm not close to the industry but I suspect that a large proportion of commercially published photographs in print and online originate from phones already.

The decline of interchangeable lens cameras has to some extent been arrested by 'mirrorless', but can the new equilibrium be sustained once mirrorless is fully established and the wave of DSLR replacement subsides? Will the volume of 'serious' camera sales be sufficient to sustain the manufacturers in development of the technologies and launching of new cameras?

I don't think I will ever stop taking pictures even though I have been a beginner for 50 years. But the professional photography world that sustains the equipment manufacturers, and the flow of new camera products that sustains the market, will surely suffer to some extent?

Of course there are a lot of moving parts here. AI probably wouldn't be an acceptable substitute for wedding photos (for example). And it's quite noticeable that video has become an ever more important aspect of new cameras. The amount of video produced and published one way or another must have increased massively over the last decade.

As I have been typing this brief stream of consciousness I have realised that even the experts can't reliably predict the full consequences and impact of AI.

What I do know is that I am already starting to be irritated by not easily being able to tell what is 'real' and what isn't.
 
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zarathu said:
I cannot convince her how inferior they are.
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If, as you say, she has published several books, presumably selling some, then her opinion is clearly as valid as your own.
 
As I've been playing with AI generated images (It started as a joke for "er indoors") I come to realise while it wont replace photography for me, it does have a place.
I realsied it's a great way for those who cant get out to create outdoor or whatever art images, yes it's not the same, but I supprisingly got a lot of fun making silly pug dog images as a joke (we have a pug) I can see the possibilites.
Will I be selling my camera? Not likely.... at least not yet.... ;)
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
If, as you say, she has published several books, presumably selling some, then her opinion is clearly as valid as your own.
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Not really. The photos in her book are no bigger that the photos one shows on FB and are no more than 4 inches x 6 inches. At that size, the tiny sensory of her phone works great. However I only print to 13 x 19 inches, and at that size one can easily see the inferiority of her images. Books are no measure of quality. Just because a small number of people buy a book she has published doesn’t mean its quality. She said that she was not willing to put any work into the images. She wanted the AI in the camera to do all the work. In my mind, she is no longer a photgrapaher, she is a collector of phone images. She would probably even admit that. It is alluring. Colleen Miniuk has even given up her big camera.
 
zarathu said:
Not really. The photos in her book are no bigger that the photos one shows on FB and are no more than 4 inches x 6 inches.
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Why does it matter to you that she uses small images to communicate with others?

Frankly, a lot of my pictures went into newspapers at that size or smaller but that was fine, because I got paid the same no matter what size they were used at. Perhaps she sees her photography in a similar manner...
 
Because unlike most people who have been doing photography for 6month, I have been doing it for 55 years, and remember when there were actually definitions of how thing were.

It matters to me so that photography is not ruined by people who have their phones do everything, and they become simply a collector of images. I have been a professional photographer and so I am interested is keeping the pro part of this field pro.

This is why I care. People who are just dabblers don’t even know what I am talking about. Good for them!
 
zarathu said:
Because unlike most people who have been doing photography for 6month, I have been doing it for 55 years, and remember when there were actually definitions of how thing were.
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People like pictures for a variety of reasons - for some there can be an aesthetic quality that makes the image pleasing, while for others the only thing that matters is kinda getting the object in view and never mind the rest.
 
ancient_mariner said:
People like pictures for a variety of reasons - for some there can be an aesthetic quality that makes the image pleasing, while for others the only thing that matters is kinda getting the object in view and never mind the rest.
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Exactly so.

I am quite certain that there is no "one truth", when it comes to recording images, whether with a brush and paint or with a camera 'phone.
 
zarathu said:
Because unlike most people who have been doing photography for 6month, I have been doing it for 55 years, and remember when there were actually definitions of how thing were.

It matters to me so that photography is not ruined by people who have their phones do everything, and they become simply a collector of images. I have been a professional photographer and so I am interested is keeping the pro part of this field pro.

This is why I care. People who are just dabblers don’t even know what I am talking about. Good for them!
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Photography means different things to different people and for me it's the photograph that's important and not how it was made. Also, for me an AI generated image, as opposed to one where an AI tool, such as denoising, has been used, isn't a photograph.

When assessing an photograph I look at how "fit for purpose" it is, by looking at both its content and its technical quality, but the content is always more important than the technical quality.

Although some professional photographers are now using smartphones for specific purposes, I don't understand how "keeping the pro part of photography pro" relates to the use of smartphones by the general public, and I'm not sure how people using their smartphone as a visual notebook to collect images, is ruining photography. Nor can I work out what you mean by "definitions of how things were"

Does the person you are writing about consider herself a "professional", either in practice or in the standard of her work or is she just taking close up pictures of things that interest her where the quality of her phone is "fit for (her) purpose"?

So yes, I am struggling a bit to "even know what [you] are talking about", even if I can make some guesses.

As an aside (1) and going back to your earlier post, there are smartphone apps (at least for the iPhone, and I assume Android) that bypass all the AI tools and allow you to save unmanipulated raw files.

As another aside (2), when you say "Colleen Miniuk has even given up her big camera." do you mean she has given up her M43 olympus for a smartphone or small sensor camera?

And aside (3) I've just counted it up, and I processed my first film and made my first print 57 years ago, and as part of my 15 years working in professional photography, a large part of it was photomacrography (my pedantry prevents me calling it macro photography).
 
zarathu said:
Books are no measure of quality. Just because a small number of people buy a book she has published doesn’t mean its quality. She said that she was not willing to put any work into the images. She wanted the AI in the camera to do all the work. In my mind, she is no longer a photgrapaher, she is a collector of phone images. She would probably even admit that. It is alluring. Colleen Miniuk has even given up her big camera.
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As someone who is keen to see photographs disseminated I'd say that books are a great measure of how 'successful' photos are. Reaching an appreciative audience is a great achievement in my book. If printing pictures small can hide flaws that photo-nerds and purists are offended by then I'm all for it.

I don't care if someone who has been taking photos for a week is making work in full on auto-enhancement mode that gets seen if they call themselves a photographer or a pantomime dame! There are people who have been taking photos for decades who can't make decent pictures, as a visit to any camera club exhibition will demonstrate! :D

Ivory towers are lonely places. I'd stay away from them. ;)
 
I could tempt fate by saying that yes, AI will be the end of photography - and literature, government and truth to boot. Can we revert to the 1960s please? But hang on - what about the promised 'white heat of the technological revolution'?

What's certain is that AI will become ever more ubiquitous. Have you ever corresponded with a company's chat bot?

It'll invade the interfaces of commerce & health care (and drive the buses) - but could even free up some humans for us to interact with when the going gets rough - or not, depending.

But no, it's not going to kill photography directly, in itself. We love photography too much - it's an artificial medium in some ways but we like its practice & its truths.

And I'll ask this: can AI learn to distinguish truth? How - can it be intuitive? It's mechanical! Faux intuition, anyone?

That's not to say that the world won't rely on it more & more. But I'd wish it well (or not) in a major power or communications outage ...

So let's keep our spades & axes sharp! We might have to go back to the land, or the ruins of it, sooner than we think - or at least those of us that are left ...

As intelligent, conscious beings, we've done pretty well at conquering the planet we live on, except that we haven't conquered it at all.
 
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Ed Sutton said:
There are people who have been taking photos for decades who can't make decent pictures, as a visit to any camera club exhibition will demonstrate!
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Just as there are people who've spent £1000s on gear acquisition, yet are culturally blind & technically impaired. But it's utterly human to be naive ...

Not that AI is going to help in any way. If you can't do it, then you're not going to get very far faking it by proxy, either.

Life's an adventure, an experiment, a pilgrimage. You want a bot to do it for you? It can't!
 
droj said:
Not that AI is going to help in any way. If you can't do it, then you're not going to get very far faking it by proxy, either.
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I'm not so sure about that. Who else remembers the late, great Pierre Brassau...

en.wikipedia.org

Pierre Brassau - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
I remember Daguerre saying to Niepce, the collodion process will be the death of photography.... It's still here. :naughty: I'll get my coat....
 
Ah, that Daguerre bloke, what a joker.

...and the things he could do with old tin cans ;)
 
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