What Is A Photograph?
A week of our now recurring friend, Mr Covie, gave me some time to think.
I awoke last Sunday to the telltale symptoms so many of us recognize as our now-recurrent yearly attack of the hairy virus thing.
BTW, it kicked me pretty hard for the first four days.
I am better now, thanks, but it did take some of the wind from my sails.
Lots of fluids, and don’t fight back. Just sleep it off.
Indeed, this came on the first week of our four-week mission to vacate our home of 34 years and move out to the desert. My wife soldiered on as I moaned and acted like a pitiful idiot.
Now we have three weeks to go, and I have entered the fray. Yesterday, I had to make some decisions on things that I have had for decades. In almost every decision process “Toss” won over “Box”.
[ :if {item ‘id’} < {need ‘id’} else; delete ‘id’]
I have given up romancing stuff.
I want to romance experiencing.
I look at what surrounds me and think - well, how does this allow me to make more and better photographs?
My answer - at least my answer at this point in life - is; they don’t.
So they go.
A few years ago, I realized how much effort, time, and money I was spending on archiving negatives taken for clients throughout the 70s and 80s.
Big hair.
Wide belts.
The constant smell of hair spray.
Decades of it in small glassine strips in book after book.
Useless.
None of them are famous (well, maybe Jenny Garth), so they have no value at all.
Worthless.
Many of the companies are no longer in business.
Goldwaters, JC Penny, May Co.
So out they went. Bin after bin.
Literally a lifetime in six garbage bins.
It hurt. For a minute.
Then it was over.
And the sun rose the next morning.
Many of you know how much I love my old cameras. I really do.
But today… if/else.
Life moves this way. Then that.
Stuff is static.
Photography was once the single driver of my artistic vision, and now it is more of the nucleus of that vision.
Watching photography as intently as I do, I see where it is going. Some of that is decades of experience, some of that is watching other channels of influence, some of it is keeping my hands on the pulse of what is happening.
And some of it is just dumb intuition.
All that said.
I’m not wrong.
There was a discussion over at a website supposedly focused on photography where a photographer was asking questions about the nature of AI and whether it makes a photograph or not… and if not, then what is it?
This is an AI-generated synopsis of the article:
AI image creators like DALL-E and Stable Diffusion are capable of generating realistic images quickly, posing a potential threat to photographers' jobs. These systems, however, currently rely on copyrighted material, raising ethical questions about intellectual property rights and exploitation. AI's future capabilities could include responding to trending online events and tailoring content for social media, advertising, and e-commerce.
While AI's impact on job displacement and mental health is a concern, it may struggle to replace photographers in areas requiring intricate detail, like product and automotive photography. The lack of copyright on AI-generated images could be preserving jobs, but legal measures might be necessary for future protection.
In advertising, CGI and AI are used to enhance production and speed up cycles, but this can require additional coordination and approval processes. While AI should ideally understand copyright and permissions, current systems may not be adequately trained.
The use of AI has potential implications for photographers and visual artists, who may unknowingly contribute to industry shifts that undermine their livelihood. Critical thinking skills are needed to navigate these technological trends.
This is my response:
What does a ‘photograph’ mean?
To me, it boils down to asking what you want a photograph to do?
If it means the viewer is engaged with the creator.
The viewer of the image understands the skill, aesthetic, drive, and personal growth of a human being who has practiced again and again in order to come close to perfecting capturing a moment in time in a single, suspended frame—and that the act of making that solitary frame was the result of a human being steeped in the depths of creativity, age, context, situation, and occasionally dumb, blind luck.
It was conceived in the artist’s mind well before the click. From months of planning to “whipping around with camera to eye”, the photographer plans their attack and brings it to life through exposure, deep-culling, and post-processing.
But what about commercial photography? The client doesn’t care how it was made.
In commercial photography, making images for third-party use so they can advertise or promote a product, that assessment is absolutely correct.
But we call that “content” and ‘commercial’ art.
And making that stuff means it really has nothing to do with the process.
It hasn’t since approximately the year 2000.
But photography is derived from its own terms and is not necessarily related to use.
A photograph is an art form.
It exists on a different real plane and a far different metaphorical plane of meaning.
While content is just filler and no one really cares, making imagery to sell more Volvos or next month’s fad diets means everything is on the table.
And it is correct; the client doesn’t care.* Other photographers only seem to care, and the public only wants what it believes it wants. Visual pablum. Commercial fodder to run on Instagram for a day or so, or even in a magazine at 2” x 3”s.
Making a photograph in order to make a photograph means something far different.
At least to me.
It means a personal extension of what I was feeling, searching for, building context upon, deeply exploring, or even simply thinking to myself, “Hey, cute shadow play”.
Click.
However;
If photography means the inarticulate accumulation of random pixels based on the lowest common denominator factored from an extremely limited and stolen database but yet projects the 'cool sharpness, dudes' and other rendering traits of a photograph, although it involves no humanity, no emotion, nothing at all to make it special other than a prompted string of words that are manifested wildly differently each time they are cast... well, that's another thing.
Cause the two sure as hell have nothing at all to do with each other. Nada!
Remember when photographers hated when clients would say, “Just shoot a lot of images, I’ll know what I want when I see it?” Good times.
So we continue on with the non-sensical and blasphemous term “AI Photography” when no such thing actually exists. This phenomenon is, of course, not relegated to only photography, but that is what we are discussing here.
*The client doesn’t care…
No, but the viewers do—or at least they are starting to talk about it. They will begin to sense the deeply embedded bullshit of a company that espouses authenticism and ‘being real’ using AI art to sell their inauthentic crap.
Imagine Patagonia using AI.
Or Dove.
As I begin a new chapter in my design world, I am featuring AI in this way: It can be a wonderful assistant, but it is never going to be the leader.
My view is that we talk about photography in so many interchangeable ways that we forget that it is a tool, a craft, a hobby, a serious artistic pursuit, a commercial visual means of advertising, and a way to capture moments in time for remembrance.
Other than the camera, there are wildly divergent paradigms between a wedding photographer, a war correspondent, or a high-end jewelry photographer specializing in advertising.
I practice commercial photography. For creating that sort of 'content', I will use everything at my disposal to give the client what they want. I may give advice as well, but in the end, the golden rule attaches: They got the gold, and they make the rules.
For me, when making photographs, I rarely even Photoshop out the powerlines.
I have always believed the precept that authenticity IS the goal of a photograph, and I aim to keep that tradition alive.
At least for me.
Being out of sorts for a week left me wrung out and easily exhausted.
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Excellent. Inspirational. Thank you.