Staying Ahead of AI, While Creating a Sustainable Business... and Saguaros
Roaming the deserts near my home and within my art.
Good morning, Framers, I hope it is going well for all of you.
I am sitting on the porch after taking a bit of a stroll up the hill to see a new arena one of the neighbors has built.
He is a roper, and now he can practice his roping skills right in his backyard.
It got me to thinking about how difficult it must be for someone who loves to ride, and rope, and do rodeo stuff if they don’t have tremendous access to the stuff they need to do that.
As a photographer, my camera is always on the seat next to me if not in my hand, or around my neck.
A roper may have to drive 50 miles for an hour of practice in an arena at a cost of a few hundred bucks per.
We are sort of lucky in that our passions are so easily doable.
(Well, if you love to shoot 8x10 film and want to enlarge the negatives onto photo paper, that is most likely harder to do today than roping a steer in a rented arena. Unless you live in NYC.)
Situations.
This week in the Creative Class, we took a look at a new AI tool that will allow a photographer to help a client prepare a website with ease. This tool will be able to put several thousand dollars into an entrepreneurial visual artist’s account.
The value of being able to do more than one thing for your client is not one to overlook. Not today. Not tomorrow.
AI allows this to be done, but in the end, it comes down to the individual and their ability to understand business and to have taste.
Business is easy.
Taste is hard.
So while we can sitemap out a site in a few minutes (where it used to take days), the ability to take that basic site to fruition will remain a human-based distinction.
A human with taste.
How do you get taste?
By engaging. Engage with everything you can.
I love music.
A lot of different kinds of music.
Sample from my playlist that is on rotation right now:
Reba, Coltrane, Miles, Heart, George Straight, Sinatra, Samuel Barber, Xenakis, Howard Shore. And sometimes I just immerse myself in jazz or modern classical music.
Eclectic.
Now, for sure, I am not holding myself up as an arbiter of taste. I would not want to be that person. Ever.
But I can say I may be an example of someone who engages with a lot of different kinds of music, art, and photography in order to understand my place in the grand scheme of it all.
That ability to discern—to have what is referred to as taste—is how we stay ahead of AI.
It is what allows us to use AI without worrying about it replacing us.
AI has no taste, no discernment, and no ability to understand the output in any context at all. That is left to us.
AI will never say, “Hey, Don, let me try that again. I am not satisfied with what I just did.
It lacks understanding of that very simple idea.
It could be done better.
Faster, it understands.
But ‘better’ is a mystery that it cannot unravel.
Like the word “quality”, it is terribly difficult to define, even for us humans.
(See “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” for more on that.)
I read ZATAOMM every ten years. About time for my next read. I learn something new every time. The information changes because the context of my life changes.
Here is a short conversation between Chris Do and Kevin Lau on the discernment of taste as being the leverage over AI.
There is a lot of nonsense running around about AI.
Most of it is by tech bros who just want to make a fast buck.
You see the ads on FB and IG… “AI Runs My Brand New $10M Business, and I’ll Show You How With This Nifty $22 Ebook.”
Sure you do, Bucky. Everyone running a $10M business hawks $20 crap on Facebook.
(There are literally hundreds of these bullshitters out there. I wish Zucks would do something about fake ads… oh wait, they pay him. Nevermind.)
AI is now baked into much of what we do—at least it is in what I do.
Photoshop, Illustrator, Webflow, Lightroom, Figma, Descript. All now have AI tools that you can either let loose (no taste), or control (your taste), and create more work for your clients.
With the thing that AI does best: speed of execution.
And isn’t that what we are in business to do?
Provide our clients with visuals, graphics, and photographs that exude our taste within their brand.
I think so.
The future will be owned by those who have the skills to create a wider variety of art.
All within the style and taste they bring to the project.
Just like that roper down the road.
We have the tools we need to practice more within our constant reach.
We can shoot more, design more, create more.
With the added advantage of not having to look where we step after doing our work.
Let me know how you are using the new tools to define your work.
I am doing a webinar on Tuesday at 5 PM Pacific to discuss the Client Acquisition Sprint.
It will be 45 minutes, and it will NOT ba a 45-minute sales course. I will give you actionable information you can use to find clients no matter where you live. I guarantee it. Yes, I will mention the class, but only once at the top, and offer a special incentive in the last 5 minutes. You can bail anytime you want.
The Webinar starts at 5 PM, Pacific.
You will need Zoom.
This is the Client Acquisition Sprint Login
Client Acquisition Sprint for Serious Photographers
When you are ready, here is how I can help you succeed.
Group Mentorship: a small group of photographers who meet to show images, work on their portfolio, and build their businesses with help from a wonderful group. Lifetime membership for one fee.
One-on-one Mentorship: You and me - working together in an intense 6-month push to get you on the way to over $30K in revenue if you are making less and over $60K if you are already making around $30K.
The Creative Class: Expand your toolset and become a one-person visual agency capable of pulling in steady and repeated income. If you have questions, let me know, and I will answer them as fast as possible.
Discount codes for In the Framers:
Cohort Discount $197: $1000 | A23CD7E72E
Creator Discount: $100: $197 | 2BA98E4053
I love Saguaros.
We have five of them on our property.
An endless and delightful fascination.
I love to blend people into the cactus shots.
Or is it to blend cacti into the people shots?
Hmmmm…. I’ll get back to you.
I love the contrast between the dark rocks on this hill and the bright green of the cactus.
Thanks for coming along this week.
There are a few more Saguaro photographs for my Premium Members.
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