The TERRIFYING Reality About AI That Photographers Need to Know

In this video, I'm sharing the unsettling reality about AI that photographers need to know. AI is going to change the photography industry and there's no way to stop it. So if you're a photographer, it's important that you understand how AI works and what implications it has for the future of photography.

Whether you're a professional photographer or just starting out, this video is a must-watch. In it, I'll share with you everything you need to know about AI and the impact it has on the photography industry. Whether you're a fan of photography or not, this video is worth watching!

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[cmmates]

I heard a quote form George Lucas recently. "When a new tool comes out, everyone goes crazy for it and they often forget that there is a story to tell. You are telling a story using tools, you are not using tools to tell a story".

[andrewdoeshair]

I don’t make my living directly off of photography, but as a hairdresser, photography has been deeply intertwined with most opportunities I’ve been afforded over the past decade. With all the talk of AI replacing photographers I heard one statement that I liked a lot because it rings true in my own use case for photography— AI doesn’t tell the truth the way a photograph does. There are some huge prestigious competitions in hair which require not only a finished photographed be submitted, but also the raw files, so the judges can confirm how much of the image was hairdressing and how much was retouching. Or a simpler more day-to-day example for how I use photos of my work— how many AI images of haircuts would I have to show someone before they trusted that I could cut their hair well?

[alanoconnor]

I was in a friend's flat in 1994. He was reading about this new thing called the internet. After explaining it to me my response was 'It'll never take off'

[chumleyk]

As a CD at a full-service digital agency... I would be hard-pressed to outsource creativity to a photographer when my team will just ideate and generate the AI 'photographs's themselves. Yes, clients could bypass us too and do it directly in-house themselves but our reputation lives and dies by our creative effectiveness and the perception that we are the most awarded creatives in the industry - you won't get fired for hiring us, you might do if you try to do what we do yourself as a marketing director in an FMCG whatever. We hire photographers for their problem-solving, planning, reliability, approach, and repeated teamwork, but mainly because they are currently the gatekeepers of getting something real onto screen/print. MTheir style or creativity helps but that is just to support the very clear campaign creative briefs made by the core creatives - the CD, and/or AD in collab with the client. I can't see big work going to photographers who have dropped their cameras for AI-generated work because they would then be stepping into a totally different creative field. Unless the photographer has already made a MASSIVE name for themselves in that space. Tough call all round. Here's the other rub: current AI/machine learning/generative systems aren't as clever as we all think they are and we are stumbling into another DotCom bubble. But perceptions on what is and what isn't will be changed whether we like it or not.

[Popa_Bogdan_Light_Drawing]

sports photography, kindergarten photography... AI can't replace that EVER! thank for the video

[MarkTrego]

As a retired long-time staff photographer for large metropolitan daily newspapers, this reminds me very much of the beginning of the period starting about 20 years ago when digital photography (along with free classified online advertising and free online news) began to pretty much totally hollow-out the photojournalism profession. 

Basically from about 2000-20002 digital completely overtook film in the news business and that was exciting in terms of the immediacy that digital provided.   

But by 2004 it became clear that unlike film on a pro level, basically, anybody could shoot digital -- and the domino effect began.  Then the iPhone w/a camera arrived and a few years later, news websites were regularly using pictures sent in by the public for free. When I retired about 10 years ago after about 35 years in the business, one could still make a living shooting weddings, ads, etc. but photojournalism die-hards like myself tend to hate the commercial sector for the most part.  And the little work left in the pro media space by say 2010 was a bit of a sweatshop-like experience.

So. Now AI has landed and it looks like it'll have a significant effect on commercial like the DSLR and the iPhone had on photojournalism in terms of paid work.

I think the wedding business is still fairly safe but product and fashion work looks pretty exposed in my opinion.

And to be clear, this is just my opinion based on my experience. And now that I'm and old guy I'm enjoying photography again and I think that's bc I'm doing only personal work now.

Finally, your studio in the background! That's a master class on how to organize a studio. Very impressed!

[danielboulton]

I currently work as the in-house director and photographer of one of the UK’s leading advertising agencies. And something mind boggling happened recently. They took a library of work created by me which was from a huge 4 day shoot and used all the images to train an AI to basically create boat loads of more imagery. At first it did make me feel really nervous about the future of my job. But I’ve attempted to reframe it in my mind recently that no matter how many images AI can create, based on my photography or others it will always require someone like me. A story teller/a creative to curate and present the right work and at that rate it’s merely another tool. But it’s still scary. If anything it’ll set the real artists apart from the pretenders.

[TobiJenkins]

Im a product still life photographer that has now almost fully transitioned to CGI. The thing for me about AI that I can't get over is the notion that I haven't actually made the work if I use it to generate an image. Making the work, literally building the image is the joy I get from being a creative. Ideas are cheap, everyone has them but the difference between working creatives and those that aren't is that we have put in the time to develop the skill sets to create the work. Within the making of that work is where your style comes though. Seeing creatives throw away their style to replace it with the generic 'mid journey' style almost seems like sacrilege you know?

[LXDV]

I'm an architectural photographer and we've gone through something similar over recent years with the use of 3D rendering. Everything you've said here is true for us already. And fortunately I can't see AI having any more of an impact on our industry than 3D rendering already has. And there will always be a need for great photographers in the commercial world.

[DIMITRISEMENIC]

I just watched 3 of your videos. I really like your honesty, your professionalism, your soul. Thank you.

[chrisclarke]

So many people feel threatened by progress instead of accepting that it is inevitable . The best way of dealing with it is not to resist and criticise but to embrace it, learn all about it and find the new opportunities that it presents. At the same time you will discover its limitations and why human skills will always enable us to stay one step ahead of the game . After all it is humans that are commissioning the work and not machines and it is humans that may well get bored of it and look for originality. Scratchy vinyl is making a huge comeback because people do not want idealistic perfection - they want real life which contains emotions . A I will never do emotion. Recognise that and move with it

[jonphebus]

This is the 7th time I have watched or listened to this video. It calms me more than a cup of chamomile. The underlying message seems to be a point you make often - know your Genre, Style, and Niche!

[lwizzyo]

I work in Software Engineering and have photography as my hobby. Most photographers fear AI will be used to generate an image that is better than what they could make, but that is not what will be happening.
Lets take advertising as an example, AI will generate lots of variations of an image for an ad campaign, showing everyone a text/image/video tailored for the viewer. It will learn from engagement it got on that what might work and what might not and it will refine it before showing it to the next viewer. By the time the ad campaing reaches millions of viewers it will be better and more targeted than any single thing even the best human could have come up with.

[johndeehan]

You hit the nail on the head, not just about Ai, but photography in general. I am a very experienced photographer over many years with a technical education and I have looked at your work and thought I could easily do that. However I compare myself to an old guitarist friend of mine. He has played on movie soundtracks and with the likes of Van Morrison. He can play superb covers of Carlos Santana and Mark Knopfler tracks such as Sultans of Swing, but the penny dropped with me a long time ago. He may well be able to play as well as these famous guitarists, but they wrote it. Like you they had the ideas not him. The realisation was yes I could take the same pictures as you in terms of composition, lighting etc, but could I come up with the ideas in the first place?

[soucouyant]

Great video. A.I. is Great....but it can't replace reality. We still need photographers to shoot at weddings, events, graduations, where people ACTUALLY ARE. Companies will definitely take advantage of A.I. to do commercials, they recently did one totally with A.I., it looks horrible, but give it a year, and you won't be ble to tell. But we still need creative ideas and creativity to even make those commercials. A.I. is a very powerful tool, but it's still a tool. We still need someone to wield the tool. Great video. Blessings

[marcinmrzyglocki]

You have mentioned creative aspect, but there is another more important, I think: experience. Not only it's not easy to make a good photo of yourself, the memory of all the experience of meeting the photographer, talking with him even about weather or cats, seeing the process of the photo being made, getting emotional after seeing the effect - these are all worthwhile memories. Human to human, this is still valued. I would even suggest retouching to lose a lot of its appeal, as heavily edited images would feel to some extent like generated by AI.

[martinekwall]

I agree with you.
What people generally don’t get is that an artistic communication starts at the creator as an idea or concept and then makes this idea beautiful or whatever with the tools of that art.
It’s not just the color light shadows and composition that makes it great it’s the alive communication at the creator. AI is soulless just throwing around patterns but can be useful for other boring tasks.
Especially now when AI is so fantastic it’s more important than ever that we can enhance our fantasy and ability to think beyond the ramifications of today’s society.

[my.penny.wagers]

I'm a copywriter. I often work alongside photographers, graphic designers, illustrators, etc. to create ads, app assets, video stuff, etc. Here's my concern: I know AI can't do what I do. I've tried it. It can't empathize with an audience, it needs human direction to do that. But the issue is, who cares? My line of work is not exactly a meritocracy. Most of the people I work for have no idea how I do what I do, and therefore aren't great judges of the value. Brands the world over spend gobs of money on ineffective creative because they can't tell the difference between impactful messaging and crap. So if enough businesses out there don't see the value in, say, your photographs or images, or my copy, and think they can get results just as good by faffing about with AI themselves, is your job really that secure? (This is something I'm currently grappling with, so it's an honest question and wondered what your thoughts were. Thanks for reading.)

[markjgobrien]

Scary thing is... in 2021 I had absolutely no idea about AI or what it could do. In 2022 I experimented with Imagine AI & Aftershoot for culling/editing weddings.... and discovered ChatGPT in early 2023... which now writes most of my copy and does my research. Although there's no real panic for us creatives at the moment... what's going to be around in 2 years time that we have absolutely no idea about right now?

[geoffreygriffiths]

What's at risk is camera production. The more people who abandon photography with a camera, the few cameras are made, there will be fewer choices and higher costs.