Is photography dying? Part 2: evolution

[RichC]

My earlier thread "Is photography dying?" caused a lot of discussion. I came across this article today. It basically says:

Simply documenting a moment with a camera is irrelevant, as AI photography can create that with a few commands.​

​

Instead, photograph your strangest and most random thoughts.​

​

Photography will survive, but will get weird. We as photographers have to be more experimental than we’ve ever been before. Why? Because an AI wouldn’t be able to understand what’s going on.​

This is fine by me, as that's how I photograph anyway - below are a few random examples of my photos.

So, photography won't die but what it shows will evolve radically. Thoughts?

 

[jszokoli]

Maybe I've missed it, but I'm not sure why no one has stated the simple fact, AI images are not 'real'.

AI is just a weird mirror of our experiences as captured by computers.

Reality is strange.

Way stranger than we give it credit for. Our path through life is filled with discovery of that weirdness.

AI only looks back to what has been.

Joe

 

[Saganich]

Narrow AI may not be making real images, but it does elicit the same emotional response in humans. Do the Cartesians win with NAI? We are just complex chemical algorithms after all? No, we are not but NAI will help us believe it by further narrowing perspective. For example, false images have long ago replaced our everyday image consuming world via corporate PR, advertising, etc. The result of AI imaging taking over the PR and advertising world will be to further narrow that already narrow cultural perspective/reflection. This may lead to a restricted emotional response to images. So the AI is then teaching us. That's one failure...for nonauthoritarians anyway.

 

[telenous]

'Simply documenting' is made to sound like a purely mechanical and uninvolved process, which, of course, it is not. There are many choices that have to be made in the act of photographing and a mechanical process cannot replicate that.

Unless the quote means that you don't have to document because any image you want can be 'created' in the computer with a few command prompts. If so, that misses the point of documentation, as an act of witnessing, even more.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Only idiot would think what documentary could be computer generated.

On the second thought, it is part of spinning in the media to generate sale. As one smart RFF member has mentioned.

Third thread about the same looks suspicious in this regard 🙂

 

[Retro-Grouch]

"Simply documenting a moment with a camera is irrelevant, as AI photography can create that with a few commands.
Instead, photograph your strangest and most random thoughts."

Well, perhaps I'm nit-picking, but AI cannot create a moment. The moment exists independently from any documentation of it, and certainly cannot be created. And no one can photograph a thought.
With something as new, influential, and potentially explosive as AI, I think we need to be very careful of how we talk and think about it. A lot hangs in the balance.

 

[RichC]

A few points of clarification:

• "Simply documenting" does not equal "documenting is simple" - it means "just", as in "this activity only".
• We photographers know that documentary and other varieties of "straight" photography are creative and not simple - the point is that this distinction is of no interest or irrelevant to many non-photographers: they won't/don't care whether the photograph they're looking at is an "real" photograph or an AI fake.
• Of course AI cannot capture a moment - it's got no connection with reality, unlike a photograph. But see my previous point.

In short, most people aren't interested in how a photo-realistic pic is created or why - just the end result: what they're looking at.

 

[Rayt]

If AI has access to surveillance cameras then I am sure decisive moments can be captured. AI is just a machine. Garbage in garbage out.

 

[Dogman]

Simply documenting a moment with a camera is irrelevant, as AI photography can create that with a few commands.Instead, photograph your strangest and most random thoughts.Photography will survive, but will get weird. We as photographers have to be more experimental than we’ve ever been before. Why? Because an AI wouldn’t be able to understand what’s going on.

Okay. Sounds like a gimmicky extension of "conceptual photography" to me. You know: the premise that I have an idea for a photograph so I don't need to actually make the photograph. Just thinking it is enough.

Total bullsh*t.

 

[telenous]

The way this has been rephrased ('most people aren't interested in how a photorealistic pic is created or why') has obvious connections with 'fake news'. Most people may not be interested either in whether their news are real or fake, insofar as they sound like news.

It is a problem, but not with the news or the photographs, but rather with forgetting (or not caring, or...) that there is a very real vetting process authorising the news or the image as accurate, and not merely as representational.

 

[jsrockit]

Okay. Sounds like a gimmicky extension of "conceptual photography" to me. You know: the premise that I have an idea for a photograph so I don't need to actually make the photograph. Just thinking it is enough.

Total bullsh*t.

That's a very limited idea of what conceptual art (photography) is...

 

[Dogman]

A gimmicky extension thereof. 😉

 

[Bob Michaels]

'Simply documenting' is made to sound like a purely mechanical and uninvolved process, which, of course, it is not.

Absolutely true. I will always believe where you stand, where you point the camera, and when you press the shutter are more important that anything that can be done technically.

Unless the quote means that you don't have to document because any image you want can be 'created' in the computer with a few command prompts.

Of course, many have been attempting to reconstruct history using pen, ink, and paper for centuries. We are just talking about a more technically advanced approach..

 

[Dogman]

From my POV, photography's strongest reason to exist is its ability to document. Successful documentation requires a clarity of vision in the photographer. Manufacturing, fabricating, creating an image--especially one from whole cloth--needs no vision, only a skill set.

 

[sjones]

How many folks on here are ready to toss away their cameras completely, as in not even any snaps from your phone camera, and go full AI? Of the humans who produce nearly 5 billion photos a day, how many of them are going to go full AI? No more photos of parties, children, the family dog, the summer vacation, etc. I mean, we’ve been talking about the 'death' of a medium, not just a notable diminution. On the other hand, if one doesn't feel the need to qualify that they are obviously talking about commercial photography because all else is trivial, amateurish, meaningless or such, then maybe it's time for commercial photography to die.

 

[Jeffry7]

I don't understand the notion that a picture created by an AI algorithm is somehow the same as a photograph.

I take a lot of vacation pictures. One of the most mundane forms of the photographic art. I take the picture. It maybe has my friend in it with some landmark as a background.

I could just ask an AI to do this and feed it some pics of my friend. How on earth is that the same?

Photography didn't kill painting. AI isn't going to kill photography. For that matter, digital photography has yet to kill film.

 

[raydm6]

Some wild AI discussions and impacts happening on LinkedIn:

A live data sculpture! | Pascal BORNET

A live data sculpture! The live music of this orchestra is used as real-time data to feed a generative AI model Another splendid work by Refik Anadol #datasculpture #artificialintelligence #machinelearning #deeplearning #music | 471 comments on LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com

I can imagine people interacting with your images in a gallery and with AI, generating new interactive imagery. Crazy stuff.

 

[Vince Lupo]

In this morning’s New York Times: Can We No Longer Believe Anything We See?

 

[Out to Lunch]

The Treachery of Images - Wikipedia - this was painted in 1929...

 

[jsrockit]

I don't understand the notion that a picture created by an AI algorithm is somehow the same as a photograph.

I take a lot of vacation pictures. One of the most mundane forms of the photographic art. I take the picture. It maybe has my friend in it with some landmark as a background.

I could just ask an AI to do this and feed it some pics of my friend. How on earth is that the same?

Photography didn't kill painting. AI isn't going to kill photography. For that matter, digital photography has yet to kill film.

Yeah, I feel the same way about AI image creation. I'm not saying it won't impact some forms of photography (it certainly will) and can be used to replace some forms of photography (yes, certainly), but it can't replace the personal (unless you like fantasy instead of reality) and it will certainly not be called photography.