The other day an image appeared on my Face Book feed and one of my friends had written underneath it :

 

 

This off the cuff comment by a “non photographer” really set me thinking. Photo manipulation is nothing new – it has been going on since the beginning of photography. For example Frank Hurley the Australian photographer got into trouble with the military for making photographic composites to depict the horrors of the First World War – he felt that a singular image was incapable of depicting what was going on. I happen to think that although most people believe photographic is a realist depiction of scene or subject the whole act of photographing something is in fact a manipulation of what is in front of the camera. The choice of colour palette, the type of lens, the viewpoint and the use of focus and framing all effect how that subject is rendered onto a film or a camera sensor. So what has got people’s knickers in a knot about AI? Well firstly we need to understand what we actually mean when we talk about the use of AI in photography. AI is now routinely used in many image editors to enhance photos. I happen to use Topaz DeNoise AI to remove excessive noise from high ISO  photos. For non photographers or the less technically inclined when shooting on a digital camera in low light conditions you have to amplify the signal coming off the sensor to get an image and that introduces noise – it is much the same effect as when you amplify sound through speakers too much and get a buzzing and distortion. Too much noise and the image looses definition and the colours become murky. So here AI is a Godsend as it cleans the image up which means the photographer can work in a broader range of conditions and still get results. What is important to note is that the App is not adding any content to that photo, it is just making it more usable. I think most photographers are very accepting of this kind of AI as it enables them into create in circumstances that they would not have bothered with before.

The AI that is causing concern is the use of AI text based image generators which can produce “photo realistic” images from written prompts. You literally type in what you want and the programs scans a database of millions of photographs that have been harvested off the internet and it creates the image for you. At their best they can be good for a few laughs such as the elephant in the room, they might win the occasional photographic prize or at worst influence elections or crash the stock market. I decided to have a go at using a text based image generator myself to create the kind of images that I usually take.  I’ve posted eight photos below, half are created in camera and half with the image generator. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thankfully I’m no longer trying to earn a living by photography. If I was was I’d be either looking at a way of monetising the technology and become an illustrator, or retrain for something else in another field. Overall personally I think AI takes away the craftsmanship of the photographic process. For example with the Rainbow Bee-eaters I have to find where they make their burrows, find their favoured perches and study their patterns of behaviour, and that before I decide on what camera, what lens etc etc. Then there is the time that I spend on location sitting and waiting for everything to come together to make the shot. Typing in “rainbow bee-eater perched in a tree eating an insect warm light shallow depth of field using a telephoto lens” takes only a few seconds and involves no knowledge, no field craft, no knowledge of animal behaviour. It seems totally soulless and devoid of any humanity. Will this new technology make me stop taking photographs. The answer is emphatically “NO!”.  What it will make me do is become more conscious of the photographic process and derive satisfaction from that. I’ve just started to get back into film photography again – I want to develop and process my photos. I want to select film and developer combinations that enable me achieve the look I want without having to do anything digitally. Will this mean I give up digital photography? Again “NO!”. Digital photography is more suited to certain types of photography and I want to make the technical and creative decisions. Do I care if people say my images are fake because everything is fake? No I don’t. I take photographs for me and me alone.