A processed image of a male Roe deer in a mixed woodland setting.
A poorly processed image of a male Roe deer in a suburban garden.
1.Clearly the second image has not been processed correctly: colours are not true… particularly the deer’s coat and the shrubbery. The greenery is too vibrant and the grass is undefined with little structure. Apart from that(!) is it a reasonable attempt at photographing the animal in a garden setting? Let’s be honest…it’s rubbish and belongs in the recycle bin. You wouldn’t give it house room would you?
2.However, the first image works well on a number of levels: the animal is in it’s natural habitat, colours are true and composition is good with the animal looking straight at the viewer. It’s as though a moment in time has been frozen as the deer moves through the woodland and stops to look straight at us before moving on. It tells a story. It’s definitely a keeper.
Now here’s the thing…one of theses images is almost totally AI generated. Apart from the animal itself which has just one AI generated feature somewhere in the form of the deer, It’s the same photo of the deer in both images. Here’s a couple of questions: is using AI generated images a good or a bad thing? Is it an acceptable thing to do?
There’s a lot of chatter doing the rounds at the moment about AI (in all its forms): The end of human creativity. Threats to human behaviours. AI taking over the world etc etc. In terms of photography and image creation it has it’s supporters and critics. Quite recently an international photography competition was won by a totally AI generated image which fooled all the judges. However, the photographer owned up and did not claim their prize. I think the point was well made.
Image manipulation has been around for a very long time though. Take a look at this image that fooled the world:
‘This image appeared on the front of the LA Times in 2003, not long after the U.S. and coalition forces invaded Iraq. It soon became clear though that the image was not a genuine photograph but rather a composite of several pictures that were merged together to make a more compelling photo to sell to the newspaper.’ (LOLWOT)
And, of course, this famous one that even fooled the ever sceptical Arthur Conan Doyle: Fairies Do Exist!
In some sense AI seems to be a natural progression of developing technology. Would you use it in your post-production work flow if it improved your images? Or is it, somehow, cheating? Are you someone who believes that AI will be the death of ‘proper photography‘ ? Or are you someone who embraces the ‘new‘ ? Are you a believer?
Happy snappin’ folks
N.B Is this all a dream?
Meter The Light 