My, the world of professional photography has changed in recent times, it's less about using your skill and taking real photos, it seems, and more about imagining your photo and letting a machine decipher it for you.

Am I being mean?

Let me recount a story for you, and let you decide. It was at a recent photographers conference and I was with my protege, the brilliant 19 year old Baily. We were in a session where the subject was still life photography by someone whose name I forget, thankfully. 

No mention of Ai was in the bumf.

Baily got her notepad out, ready to scribble some delights at how this 'professional' photographer makes money at taking still life stuff for corporate clients.

The first image, my eyes rolled in my head - a photo of an Apple Mouse next to a hole in the floorboard (I'm still trying very hard not to swear at the thought of it). It was a very pretty image BUT, the only thing in it with any photographic credentials? The Apple Mouse, plucked from his desk (probably) and placed on a piece of white card.

The hole? Ai generated.

The floor? Ai generated.

The lighting? Ai tweaked.

Baily stopped writing, we looked at each other and I gave her a wavy smile and a single raised told-you-so eyebrow.

Next image called, ahem, cut the mustard. You guessed it, an Ai generated comp (which took him a whole morning to concoct apparently), of a jar of mustard cut in half with a knife. The only photo element, the yellow Colemans Mustard label prized from the jar.

Baily tuts, I giggle.

There were others but the point was, that this was a 'professional' photographer at a professional photographers conference being paid to teach us professional photographers how he is successful with this.

Now working on what we saw, and I thought at one point Baily was going to stand up, slam her notebook on the ground and shout 'oh for flucks sake', sorry, I digress, we concluded that around 15% of what we were shown was ACTUALLY photography, the rest being created by some computer brain in a bunker in Montana. 

But it gets worse, because the room was full of Baily's, young impressionable photographers with a passion for, I don't know, photography say. I don't care for the others, but my role was to make Baily a REAL photographer, which she now is. But I wanted to cover her ears and her eyes at that time.

To illustrate how bad this was, and it does get worse, question were asked about whether the client liked the work he'd showed them/us. The upshot, to a stunned audience, was that they were his work for fun, he hadn't been employed by Apple, and Coleman's didn't know him from Adam.

So now we are in the position where pro photographers at a photographers conference are being shown images that were 15% photography at best, and as they weren't paying jobs, they could not be classed as professional either.

Now I'm not a luddite but I do take my hard won skills as precious. I have resisted the use of Ai...UNTIL NOW. I won't, ever, ever, ever generate an image just by typing text, but I will allow it to enhance my services. I use two to do this - Yes, I'm the only pro left using Lightroom (and NOT complaining about their subscription model), but their Ai denoise is fabulous. 

Then of course, there's Aftershoot - the king of culling. Resisted and detested without ever seeing it, I have now trialled it on 4 weddings and my, its awesome. It don't overdue taking photos at weddings, I'm old school and don't take fifty shots to get one (and neither does Baily now), but the eyes shut, funny face, slight blurred image culling is well, business changing. 

So in 2027, Aftershoot will allow me to offer an additional wedding service - see your finished photos over breakfast the next day. I need to call it something more trippy, but you get the point.

And as for the pro generating images which are 85% Ai, DON'T be this guy, because with the likes of him ruling the world...

...we are all flucked.

Jon

See more here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aor6YKqQgwk

Solid_Imagery_Photographer_Dorset-0662 Solid Imagery - photographer - Dorset 0013 Solid Imagery - photographer - Dorset 0002 Solid Imagery - photographer - Dorset 0007 Solid Imagery - photographer - Dorset 0010 Solid Imagery Dorset-0027 GeorgieDan-0375