About the only thing that doesn’t change relating to AI is the widely varied opinions that people hold about it. It’s progress in our life shows no way of slowing down and I’m pretty sure it won’t. From a photography point of view I welcome it but that is from an enjoyment point of view in my photography as a hobby rather that from a commercial point of view.
Even using AI for personal photography is frowned upon by some and is, I believe, banned by many photography clubs for their competition entries. I can see some logic in this as who can tell when the point is reached where the camera doesn’t have any input in the creation of an image and it is in fact totally AI generated. When this point is reached there is still skill involved but the end product ceases to be a photograph.
However, let’s consider another situation. The way I now use AI has changed even over the few months that I have been experimenting with it. Initially I was using an AI generator that would build a background around an image, removing the original background and replacing it with what you requested via the generator. The results were variable but with the options provided you could usually find something to suit your needs and the generator would even add shadows for you, which I felt was a big bonus. In my opinion this type of generator, or at least the one I was using, has gone backwards rather than forwards and I tended to be less happy with the end product. So I started looking round and eventually settled on an AI generator with which I was just able to create backgrounds that I would then composite with my original image. So basically what I have now is a collection of backgrounds without the need to have room to store them. Another bonus is that the backgrounds are unique. I may reuse them but the nature of AI means that it is extremely unlikely that the same image will be generated a second time. The downside of the way I use AI now compared to my original method of working is that you need to composite the image. This can be a bit of a challenge and also time consuming but as I said in the beginning, this is my hobby and something I enjoy doing.
So that’s where i am at the moment with AI using it to further my hobby and add something to my studio photographs. They’re not perfect and I think that in general composites never will be. There will always be something that is not quite right and the one person that can’t really judge how good a composite is is the person who created it. They know when the flaws are, and as they say, once you see it you can’t unsee it. To quote one well known photographer well known for his composites “It’s all about selling the fake” I hope to some extent I manage that.
If this does interest you then keep a look out as we do from time to time run AI workshops and also offer one to one sessions if required.
For the moment I’ll leave you with a few of my AI enhanced images from a recent shoot at JFYP Studio with Morticia Avery
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