Second Thoughts on Photography and Ai

 Should Photography shake hands with AI? 

Good question. A follow up question is, Will AI take the place of Creativity? I am in a place now that suggests, it depends. If one approaches photography, as a creative, that is a creative aspect of their use of a camera, in the development of their creating images, then I don't believe so. However if one is merely flooding the internet with pop up imagery, then yes only because there will be so much of the same it won't really affect creativity.

Take a look at how the very earliest photographic images were taken; images were captured more by experimental means of whatever a lens could imprint and expose simply what was there. No conscious effort was made by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in capturing this photo. It exists today exactly as it was taken and was never changed in any creative way. He didn't make any adjustments to it. 

The earliest saved photographic image (Heliograph on pewter plate) from 1826 or 1827 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, taken at Le Gras, France. Credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nic%C3%A9phore_Ni%C3%A9pce#/media/File:Ni%C3%A9pce_Heliograph_1827_Le_Gras.jpg

Thus it has zero creativity and exists only because of a chemical reaction he helped develop.

Fast forward to today, and because of photographic software editing tools, which Photoshop and Affinity offer, these have allowed us to become as creative as we choose to learn to do.

An example from my portfolio Mossy Forest Grove 

So from the capture by Niepce', an example of a paradigm of mere exposure to the softwares available, in addition to our own ability to mindfully imagine a result, and then to tweak to our liking, we have then already allowed a form of artificial adjustments, coupled with our own creative talents. Call it intelligence if you will. This then means that by the definition given to AI by this example, "Psychologists generally characterize human intelligence not by just one trait but by the combination of many diverse abilities. Research in AI has focused chiefly on the following components of intelligence: learning, reasoning, problem solving, perception, and using language", then through the use of these intelligent functions, we have already been, in a sense, using AI since the photo editing software was offered to us. 

As a photographer, whose means of income derives from my creative abilities, like many of us, I have been using artificial intelligence since before the craze was launched in the news and on social media, and the labs of universities and corporations. 

Initially I was proud, falsely, that I didn't want to use AI in my photography. As time has gone by I have accepted now that it is but another tool I use along with my own creative reasoning and creative talent, toward achieving my end goal; creating an image that is not just a carbon copy of what exists, but as close to what I dreamed of, and enhanced, placing for sale on my website. Where as before I thought it would cause my creativity to lose its edge, I now think of it as a less time-consuming task, from many hours or over days, to far less time. Since photo editing use of AI is still in its infancy, I await the ability to save me time in getting the images up for view and for sale. And if we, as artists, think about it, the darkroom, and now the digital DLSR, camera body and its embedded software, was perhaps the beginning of AI for artists. It allowed us to tinker with what existed just beyond the tip of our lenses.

How do you see this subject of AI and creativity influencing the world of photography? Add your thoughts below. Readers will love to hear from you if your comment is how you see this experiment, or in how you use it yourself

Is my photography pure art or is it AI?