I am so glad to see this article from you. I wrote a much smaller piece on my photography FB page a few months ago. I am in full agreement with you on this topic! And as a wildlife/wildspace photographer it is very troubling to see some of these AI creations. People need to see, appreciate and understand Nature exactly as it is. Some people are apt to believe that a purple owl exists! My line is firmly drawn in the sand on this topic. It needs to go! I am seeing so much of it now that it is ruining my interest in online imagery. Instead of being able to see and appreciate an image for what it is - now my first instinct is to second guess it. I am immediately critical and untrusting. We don’t live is a perfect/fake world so don’t show it that way.
Your images always amaze me. I was standing with you along that road where you made that milky way image. When that car was approaching, all I thought about was getting out of the way. I never thought to turn around and see what it would look like if I photographed the oncoming headlights and their interplay with the trees. No matter how many photos I take, and how much skill I develop doing so, images like this one remind me that I still have a lot of work to do to develop my photographic eye and imagination.
As a photographer of 20+ years, who has been writing on this subject for 10+ years now, I think you've perfectly encapsulated this current dilemma.
I think there is always an easy way to draw a line, but it involves how you define yourself as an artist.
Photography such as IR, B&W, or other types of "weird" things merely need an explanation, and then the viewer can understand what they are looking at.
We as humans make the mistake of assuming that our human eyeballs are the only way of seeing the world "correctly", even though we know that for example reptiles or arachnids have very different types of vision!
Either way, the common thread that separates all "photographs" from anything AI-generated, or even AI-altered, is the element of truth that underpins the whole image. Specifically, the alignment, scale, and timing of key subjects, in regular color photos, but also of special note are the luminance and colors of things like IR landscape photography, or HA deep-sky astrophotography.
In every example, it is the element of, "this actually exists in real life" that is a key to the impact and value of the photo. If any of these elements is altered, or added/subtracted, then the photo simply loses value as a photo, whether we like it or not, and its value becomes dependent upon the creative vision of the artist.
What we're seeing today is a very similar shattering of the barriers to entry for digital artists, just like how digital photography shattered boundaries for photographic artists. But, make no mistake, it ain't photography anymore. It's digital art. And artists may experience some fear and/or confusion as they navigate where a sense of value is coming from for their work. Especially when it suddenly becomes a lot easier for others to "generate" imagery that blows theirs away! I'm sure the film photographers can relate to these feelings as they watched digital photographers learn by leaps and bounds in a matter of months. Any "digital artist" who used to spend hours/days in Photoshop, and now creates superior work in a few seconds/minutes... Yikes! I have sympathy...
Lovely essay. I too have written a lot about this topic over the years, and have had many conversations about it with folks on my podcast. I also cofounded a competition intended to help reward folks who choose to preserve what you call photographic illusion (a nice term)! :) cheers and thanks for the good read!
Really thoughtful piece and appreciate the perspective. The whole "What is a photo" debate (ala The Verge) is something I think about quite a bit as a photographer. For me, a lot of my personal photography is about documenting my adventures. Having visual reminders of where I was and what I was doing to evoke the emotions I had when I was there. The idea of altering these photos goes against the very reason I took them in the first place. I also do a lot of photography at endurance events and capturing the participant's moment in time becomes the goal. Not portraying that accurately does a disservice to the participants and the client.
At the same time, I've been known to spend way too long masking and adjusting an individual image to create a piece of art that in no way mimics the reality of the scene I was capturing. I've created something of beauty, but it's something different than capturing a memory.
I too worry about the future of all of this given what the latest tech is capable of. There's such power in what it's able to create and I agree that we're still sorting out where we need to draw that line.
I have always felt this way about using a computer to manipulate a photo. For example, "Gee, I wish that (natural) sunset would have been more vibrant and have more red hues in it." So, you make that happen in a photo editing program. But, is the photo really the photo you took? The actual nature you saw? No, because you changed it. I think that type of action was the first "AI" level. Now the AI is getting far more complex, but if you were really good at Photoshop, you could put the frog on the lilypad and make it look real. Is changing the sunset any different?
With your Photoshop example, it's still a photo being combined with a photo to create a composite photo. With AI it's generated from nothing. But, yes, even Ansel Adams changed things in the darkroom.
And that's where I come down. Removing things from an image, I'm okay with--Adams did that. But he didn't add things to a photo that were not there. I understand people using composites but that's not for me, either. (And Sky replacemen, completely changing a sky to something that was never there: BLEH).
This is exactly on point! Artistic choices in photography are still a representation of the real world and real experience. With the rise of generated content that wasn't there all authenticity is lost. That could be a heavy blow for photography in general, but it could work out well for photographers who establish their reputation and base their work on authenticity.
I think you are dead on, and I'm sticking with the photography and tools I know. BTW, your bookings are down because folks are hurting financially. Only going to get worse for quite awhile - plan accordingly. Our government is successfully wiping out middle America. The middle class will not survive financially so watch your back, man.
For much of my clientele, that's typically not the case. I filled somewhere around 100 of those spaces so far and have waiting lists 10 long on some of the workshops. It's just strange that others haven't filled up, but maybe they aren't what people are interested in. My winter workshops seldom fill up this early in the year, so that about 30% of the total remaining open spaces. Instead of blaming it on the economy, I think it's more likely that I offered the wrong mix of topics/classes/destinations. It seems people are back to traveling away from Minnesota again, so I'll likely need to offer more destination workshops in 2026.
I disagree on your assessment about that government. For over 40 years, those that governed destroyed the middle class through President Reagan's and other's neoliberalism by transferring 50 trillion dollars of wealth from the middle class to the the richest 1%. We're finally returning to an FDR-style economy where the middle class is first. This election could screw that up and we could return to the policies of neoliberals like Reagan that destroyed the middle class and transferred all that middle class wealth. I hope that doesn't happen, and to help the middle class I'm voting for Harris/Walz. All that said, my newsletter isn't really about politics in a specific way like this. Although I do believe that all good art is political and that artists have a responsibility to be political. My photos are all about trying to get people to fall in love with the outdoors and protect the places that I love.
I think you are right with your concerns but like the person below my comments, I do remember people worrying the Photoshop program was quite controversial when people were manipulating images, putting people into places they never were. I noticed it just the other night on the NBC national newscast when the reporter was supposedly in Chicago reporting live from the DNC outside on the street. You could see that white line surrounding his image so you knew he was not in Chicago but standing in front of a green screen somewhere else. The average person will just not pick that up. It will be the same thing with photos. The true aficionados will notice things. I think as a professional you should be the one with a responsibility to fully inform lay persons such as myself on the differences.
A green screen used to show a reporter in a location is different than generative imagery. AI generated photo realistic imagery is an image that looks like a photo but wasn't taken by a camera and the location depicted doesn't exist in reality. It's as fake as a cartoon. It never existed in any form. That's different than using a computer program to cut a person from one photo and composite then into another.
I think if you want to be sure to see real photos and not computer generated fakery, you'll have to follow photographers that have the reputation for posting real photos, such as myself. There's going to be so many fake images out there — there already are in many Facebook groups — that even if every professional photographer took 24 hours a day to point out which are fake, there still wouldn't be enough time. And soon enough, nobody will be able to tell the difference.
BTW-I had contacted you a year ago asking if you did anything for teens in your classes because my grandson wants to be a photographer after high school. He is 17 and a senior this coming school year. He just won 2 out of the 5 categories in a teen photo contest at the Sussex Public Library! He won for the Still Life Category and the Architecture Category. He is up for the people's choice award which is being voted on now. I you would like to view the pics-use this link: https://forms.gle/s2edGsavbY7yXEsu5
I was using that example as something that even the national news misrepresented-as they said something like here's so n so in Chicago-when in reality they were faking that part.
I offer private lessons for high schoolers and a parent, and a high schooler can accompany a parent to a workshop. Tell him congrats.
If it was a reputable national news organization, and they said that the reporter was on the ground in Chicago, then they were on the ground in Chicago. There are disreputable news sources for sure. That's why it's going to come down to the reputation of the photographer or organization.
It seems like this controversy was hashed over with the advent of Photoshop. That’s the first time I recall these kind of ethical debates about what is acceptable. I’m with you, I think we need to err on the side of the captured image vs generating mind blowing images. When everything is mind blowing, nothing will be. My Facebook feed is already polluted with photo realistic plants that don’t exist, and there is something quietly infuriating about it.
I think the pushback will be that all photography is manipulated imagery. As the photographer you choose the framing, angles, settings etc, then often edit in Lightroom to get the image we want. But on some level with real photography there is always the element that we saw that image in some form and used our camera to convey it. I feel like the use of AI in photography will only feed public cynicism that nothing is real and further erode public trust. I personally will continue to share my mediocre photography rather than use AI for clicks.
I know there was lots of discussion last year about the registration sticker on the canoe and I’m on the side of if it doesn’t affect the look and feel of the shot, remove it. I recently got back from a bucket list trip to Iceland. Some locations had just a few people and I could wait for them to move. And in some shots I was glad to have people for a sense of scale, but there were some places where the shot I wanted was impossible. The generative AI in Lightroom removed those annoying people, cars and fences in a heartbeat. I suppose I could have waited until the perfect moment, but life’s too short. I don’t feel that I’m doing anything wrong. Photographers have been manipulating images and creating images that our eyes can’t perceive forever. Now we’re just getting better tools.
It's funny that you say life is too short, because I have a story about that. I once waited three plus hours while standing behind my tripod and camera for a bridge in front of a waterfall to clear. It was finally down to one person when the person's spouse saw me. He came down and asked me what I was waiting for. I told him. He asked his wife to move, and I got the shot without anyone in it.
It is still one of the most satisfying photographic experience of my life, and lives there with photos made by returning to the same spot over and over and over until I got the conditions that I wanted.
I am so glad to see this article from you. I wrote a much smaller piece on my photography FB page a few months ago. I am in full agreement with you on this topic! And as a wildlife/wildspace photographer it is very troubling to see some of these AI creations. People need to see, appreciate and understand Nature exactly as it is. Some people are apt to believe that a purple owl exists! My line is firmly drawn in the sand on this topic. It needs to go! I am seeing so much of it now that it is ruining my interest in online imagery. Instead of being able to see and appreciate an image for what it is - now my first instinct is to second guess it. I am immediately critical and untrusting. We don’t live is a perfect/fake world so don’t show it that way.
Excellent article. Thought provoking to be sure.
Your images always amaze me. I was standing with you along that road where you made that milky way image. When that car was approaching, all I thought about was getting out of the way. I never thought to turn around and see what it would look like if I photographed the oncoming headlights and their interplay with the trees. No matter how many photos I take, and how much skill I develop doing so, images like this one remind me that I still have a lot of work to do to develop my photographic eye and imagination.
Very interesting article and I’m in complete agreement with you
As a photographer of 20+ years, who has been writing on this subject for 10+ years now, I think you've perfectly encapsulated this current dilemma.
I think there is always an easy way to draw a line, but it involves how you define yourself as an artist.
Photography such as IR, B&W, or other types of "weird" things merely need an explanation, and then the viewer can understand what they are looking at.
We as humans make the mistake of assuming that our human eyeballs are the only way of seeing the world "correctly", even though we know that for example reptiles or arachnids have very different types of vision!
Either way, the common thread that separates all "photographs" from anything AI-generated, or even AI-altered, is the element of truth that underpins the whole image. Specifically, the alignment, scale, and timing of key subjects, in regular color photos, but also of special note are the luminance and colors of things like IR landscape photography, or HA deep-sky astrophotography.
In every example, it is the element of, "this actually exists in real life" that is a key to the impact and value of the photo. If any of these elements is altered, or added/subtracted, then the photo simply loses value as a photo, whether we like it or not, and its value becomes dependent upon the creative vision of the artist.
What we're seeing today is a very similar shattering of the barriers to entry for digital artists, just like how digital photography shattered boundaries for photographic artists. But, make no mistake, it ain't photography anymore. It's digital art. And artists may experience some fear and/or confusion as they navigate where a sense of value is coming from for their work. Especially when it suddenly becomes a lot easier for others to "generate" imagery that blows theirs away! I'm sure the film photographers can relate to these feelings as they watched digital photographers learn by leaps and bounds in a matter of months. Any "digital artist" who used to spend hours/days in Photoshop, and now creates superior work in a few seconds/minutes... Yikes! I have sympathy...
Lovely essay. I too have written a lot about this topic over the years, and have had many conversations about it with folks on my podcast. I also cofounded a competition intended to help reward folks who choose to preserve what you call photographic illusion (a nice term)! :) cheers and thanks for the good read!
I am hoping true photography lovers appreciate capturing what is real in the camera with “gentle editing” is still what it is all about…
Really thoughtful piece and appreciate the perspective. The whole "What is a photo" debate (ala The Verge) is something I think about quite a bit as a photographer. For me, a lot of my personal photography is about documenting my adventures. Having visual reminders of where I was and what I was doing to evoke the emotions I had when I was there. The idea of altering these photos goes against the very reason I took them in the first place. I also do a lot of photography at endurance events and capturing the participant's moment in time becomes the goal. Not portraying that accurately does a disservice to the participants and the client.
At the same time, I've been known to spend way too long masking and adjusting an individual image to create a piece of art that in no way mimics the reality of the scene I was capturing. I've created something of beauty, but it's something different than capturing a memory.
I too worry about the future of all of this given what the latest tech is capable of. There's such power in what it's able to create and I agree that we're still sorting out where we need to draw that line.
I have always felt this way about using a computer to manipulate a photo. For example, "Gee, I wish that (natural) sunset would have been more vibrant and have more red hues in it." So, you make that happen in a photo editing program. But, is the photo really the photo you took? The actual nature you saw? No, because you changed it. I think that type of action was the first "AI" level. Now the AI is getting far more complex, but if you were really good at Photoshop, you could put the frog on the lilypad and make it look real. Is changing the sunset any different?
With your Photoshop example, it's still a photo being combined with a photo to create a composite photo. With AI it's generated from nothing. But, yes, even Ansel Adams changed things in the darkroom.
And that's where I come down. Removing things from an image, I'm okay with--Adams did that. But he didn't add things to a photo that were not there. I understand people using composites but that's not for me, either. (And Sky replacemen, completely changing a sky to something that was never there: BLEH).
Your article is well thought out and written. it needed to be said.
This is exactly on point! Artistic choices in photography are still a representation of the real world and real experience. With the rise of generated content that wasn't there all authenticity is lost. That could be a heavy blow for photography in general, but it could work out well for photographers who establish their reputation and base their work on authenticity.
I think you are dead on, and I'm sticking with the photography and tools I know. BTW, your bookings are down because folks are hurting financially. Only going to get worse for quite awhile - plan accordingly. Our government is successfully wiping out middle America. The middle class will not survive financially so watch your back, man.
For much of my clientele, that's typically not the case. I filled somewhere around 100 of those spaces so far and have waiting lists 10 long on some of the workshops. It's just strange that others haven't filled up, but maybe they aren't what people are interested in. My winter workshops seldom fill up this early in the year, so that about 30% of the total remaining open spaces. Instead of blaming it on the economy, I think it's more likely that I offered the wrong mix of topics/classes/destinations. It seems people are back to traveling away from Minnesota again, so I'll likely need to offer more destination workshops in 2026.
I disagree on your assessment about that government. For over 40 years, those that governed destroyed the middle class through President Reagan's and other's neoliberalism by transferring 50 trillion dollars of wealth from the middle class to the the richest 1%. We're finally returning to an FDR-style economy where the middle class is first. This election could screw that up and we could return to the policies of neoliberals like Reagan that destroyed the middle class and transferred all that middle class wealth. I hope that doesn't happen, and to help the middle class I'm voting for Harris/Walz. All that said, my newsletter isn't really about politics in a specific way like this. Although I do believe that all good art is political and that artists have a responsibility to be political. My photos are all about trying to get people to fall in love with the outdoors and protect the places that I love.
I think you are right with your concerns but like the person below my comments, I do remember people worrying the Photoshop program was quite controversial when people were manipulating images, putting people into places they never were. I noticed it just the other night on the NBC national newscast when the reporter was supposedly in Chicago reporting live from the DNC outside on the street. You could see that white line surrounding his image so you knew he was not in Chicago but standing in front of a green screen somewhere else. The average person will just not pick that up. It will be the same thing with photos. The true aficionados will notice things. I think as a professional you should be the one with a responsibility to fully inform lay persons such as myself on the differences.
A green screen used to show a reporter in a location is different than generative imagery. AI generated photo realistic imagery is an image that looks like a photo but wasn't taken by a camera and the location depicted doesn't exist in reality. It's as fake as a cartoon. It never existed in any form. That's different than using a computer program to cut a person from one photo and composite then into another.
I think if you want to be sure to see real photos and not computer generated fakery, you'll have to follow photographers that have the reputation for posting real photos, such as myself. There's going to be so many fake images out there — there already are in many Facebook groups — that even if every professional photographer took 24 hours a day to point out which are fake, there still wouldn't be enough time. And soon enough, nobody will be able to tell the difference.
BTW-I had contacted you a year ago asking if you did anything for teens in your classes because my grandson wants to be a photographer after high school. He is 17 and a senior this coming school year. He just won 2 out of the 5 categories in a teen photo contest at the Sussex Public Library! He won for the Still Life Category and the Architecture Category. He is up for the people's choice award which is being voted on now. I you would like to view the pics-use this link: https://forms.gle/s2edGsavbY7yXEsu5
I was using that example as something that even the national news misrepresented-as they said something like here's so n so in Chicago-when in reality they were faking that part.
I offer private lessons for high schoolers and a parent, and a high schooler can accompany a parent to a workshop. Tell him congrats.
If it was a reputable national news organization, and they said that the reporter was on the ground in Chicago, then they were on the ground in Chicago. There are disreputable news sources for sure. That's why it's going to come down to the reputation of the photographer or organization.
It seems like this controversy was hashed over with the advent of Photoshop. That’s the first time I recall these kind of ethical debates about what is acceptable. I’m with you, I think we need to err on the side of the captured image vs generating mind blowing images. When everything is mind blowing, nothing will be. My Facebook feed is already polluted with photo realistic plants that don’t exist, and there is something quietly infuriating about it.
I think the pushback will be that all photography is manipulated imagery. As the photographer you choose the framing, angles, settings etc, then often edit in Lightroom to get the image we want. But on some level with real photography there is always the element that we saw that image in some form and used our camera to convey it. I feel like the use of AI in photography will only feed public cynicism that nothing is real and further erode public trust. I personally will continue to share my mediocre photography rather than use AI for clicks.
I know there was lots of discussion last year about the registration sticker on the canoe and I’m on the side of if it doesn’t affect the look and feel of the shot, remove it. I recently got back from a bucket list trip to Iceland. Some locations had just a few people and I could wait for them to move. And in some shots I was glad to have people for a sense of scale, but there were some places where the shot I wanted was impossible. The generative AI in Lightroom removed those annoying people, cars and fences in a heartbeat. I suppose I could have waited until the perfect moment, but life’s too short. I don’t feel that I’m doing anything wrong. Photographers have been manipulating images and creating images that our eyes can’t perceive forever. Now we’re just getting better tools.
It's funny that you say life is too short, because I have a story about that. I once waited three plus hours while standing behind my tripod and camera for a bridge in front of a waterfall to clear. It was finally down to one person when the person's spouse saw me. He came down and asked me what I was waiting for. I told him. He asked his wife to move, and I got the shot without anyone in it.
It is still one of the most satisfying photographic experience of my life, and lives there with photos made by returning to the same spot over and over and over until I got the conditions that I wanted.