Photography in the age of AI

Model/Assistant: Alix Hyland

To start, this article was not created with AI. It is so tempting to run this article through GPT and have you read a perfectly polished and emdashed version of my thoughts, but I'm not going to do that. I'd rather give you something disorganized, rambling, and real. 

 When AI can generate nearly anything, are our jobs as photographers at risk?

Personally, I think they are surprisingly safer than we think. People support art made by humans. People can tell when something is generated as opposed to created, and our brains yearn for that genuineness of human created art. Not to mention, sometimes AI photos have unsettling details such as a model I saw recently with ten fingers on one hand. 

How can you, a photographer, protect yourself from AI? 

While there's no foolproof way, connecting with your audience and offering a human take and emotional connection in your imagery is a good way to do that. It's ok to create art that's a bit less polished but that speaks to the viewer a bit more. A little less perfect lighting and a little more imperfect emotion. Isn't that what art really is, the process of capturing emotion? How can AI capture something it can't feel itself?

My personal take on AI is that it's a tool like anything else, but it can, and should, never replace artists. Art should ALWAYS be made by humans.