What’s Real Anymore?

All images used in this blog are all taken on transparency film!

What’s real anymore? As technology is advancing and the whole issue of AI is rapidly moving at leaps and bounds, photography is also engulfed in the whole AI debate.The lastest update in photoshop 2024 is extremely scary and will totally blow your mind.The implications can be scary and unsettling when one thinks of the wider implications.I won’t highlight what’s in the update, there is enough online where you can learn what I’m taking about.It’s called Generative Fill. This is just one part of the update.

The above image was taken with the Fuji G617camera which is a film based panoramic camera.

What scares me the most as the technogly advances at the rate it does, the things that you are able to do, the basics of what makes a great picture may be  lost to a generation. I tried of hearing when someone takes a shot and it is clear that the light is not right and other factors are not right etc and the reply is always ” Photoshop will fix it’ .Seriously, when are we going to stop replying on photoshop to fix , rather than being self disciplined and actually learn the craft of photography .

Before judgement falls upon me, let me say I do acknowledge that photoshop is a necessity with photography given how the Industry  is structured and how raw files are created.You can’t shoot a raw file without some involvement of photoshop as raw files are designed to be flat in colour etc.

The above image was taken with the Fuji G617 camera which is a film based panoramic camera.

Is the above picture real or fake? It’s 100% real, you better believe it but the latest AI in photoshop can create that from scratch!! That’s alarming in my books.

That fine line between what is real and what is not, is no longer there. It’s gone.Gone are the days when you could tell ,what was real and what was fake, gone are the days when you look at a picture in a gallery and assume it is real. Going into photographic galleries these days it is a more of asking the question, ‘ has the photographer added this or that to the picture.”

With examples that I have seen with the new AI in photography, I can no longer pick what is real and what is fake.

It’s sad that we are heading in this direction as there are photographers who do it the hard way, they know their craft, they know how light works, they know when it is the right time to shoot  and when it’s time to pack the camera up.

Over 20 years ago I met a photographer who was big in adding clouds in his pictures and passing them off as ‘ this is what I captured”

This photographer justified his actions by saying, ‘I could come back tomorrow at the same time of day and the clouds might be there.So I’m helping nature along.”

The above image was taken with the Fuji G617 camera which is a film based panoramic camera.

Today with AI in Photoshop, it is breaking all barriers, there is literally nothing that you can’t do.In the old days if you wanted to delete something or add something it required a lot of work and it also required a good understanding of  photoshop.  Those days are gone. AI of today makes it very easy, simple with little effort required.

The above image was taken with the Nikon F100  which is a film based  camera.

I’m old school and I get such a thrill and a sense of satisfaction knowing I got it right through hard work. Chasing the light, chasing the skies  and knowing the strengths of composition all are crucial in capturing a great image. Yes I can hear people calling me a dinosaur and that I’m totally out of touch in this area and that may be the case .What I do know and this is my bottom line, you don’t need AI in photography to be able to capture outstanding and emotive images. That’s the bottom line for me.

Below are a series of images that were taken 30 plus years ago. No AI back then and all of the images below are transparencies.(Slides)

What I do know and this is my bottom line, you don’t need AI in photography to be able to capture outstanding and emotive images,but you do need AI to create something that is not real.

There is nothing AI about this camera, totally manual, light metre to give the correct exposures. The image quality from this camera is phenomenal.Never forget that they took outstanding , strong and sensational images before AI was even thought of.