My new addiction? AI-generated photography
Newsletter #8. New reality? Living in the imagination world?
Something that has been on my mind a lot lately is the AI world. I have slowly been reading about it and have decided to dive in and give it a go myself.
I must say I did not expect to fall in love with it so easily. As you may have read in my previous newsletters, ever since getting back from my big trip I have felt a huge lack of inspiration. Almost no motivation to shoot new stuff. Perhaps that’s normal. But to me, it isn’t. I am used to shooting often, I always have my camera with me. But believe it or not, I have not carried my camera with me much since April. I could even count maybe 5 times or something. Which is basically nothing.
Maybe just being ‘home’ or in my ‘base’ here in Stockholm, Sweden has made me slow down but in a bit of a different way. I stopped shooting. I even stopped posting on Instagram. I feel like I just needed a break from it all, got super overwhelmed, and sometimes still feel very anxious about this busy world and finding my purpose or some sort of meaning. These questions or words keep swirling around in my mind. I feel slightly lost without any sense of direction sometimes.
But the good news is MY INSPIRATION CAME BACK! I discovered Midjourney and I am so excited to use this tool to create more! I never really expected to find AI so inspiring. I think it all started after reading this article. I realised that this tool was way more powerful than I had expected. I got curious. You know in the beginning I was a bit angry. Angry at technology for developing at such an enormous speed. And reaching PHOTOGRAPHY?? The thing that I always expected to be one of those few things that will sort of stay untouched within the creative industry. Yet here I was looking at this AI-generated image that had won a PHOTOGRAPHY AWARD.
Mind-blowing.
The artist Boris Eldagsen challenged the photography world in March 2023. How do we know if it’s real? What is real? I recommend watching the podcast video on the link inserted.
A quote from his interview in this podcast ‘..it was as if I was not existing..’
The reason this question became so alive was because the community wanted to talk about it. ‘..finally, someone is talking about AI not being photography..’
#PROMPTOGRAPHY is not #PHOTOGRAPHY
Imagination for Photography
I didn’t want to get into it. I thought it would ruin the beauty of photography. But giving a go at it got me hooked. This creativity is endless. And it is a tool to make your imagination come to life within seconds. Seems quite crazy that this is actually here? I mean growing up in the mid-late 90s all of this seemed years if not hundreds of years away.
It’s not photography. It’s a tool for imagination I would say. Photography comes through the camera. Through the eyes of a human photographer.
They say that the jobs of photographers will be taken away but I still strongly believe that they will stay. Because no AI will be able to capture the real emotions of real people. But maybe I am lying to myself I’m just trying to view all this from the positive side. Gosh crazy to think that I had been craving for the joy of life of living in the moment/present while I still managed to get myself involved in the AI-world.
Is AI plagiarism? That’s one of the questions that is also a big one for the future. It’s not a copy. It’s not a collage. It’s a guidance maybe? Basically, there are almost no limits when it comes to AI at least that’s what comes to my mind when I think about it. You are the one telling it what direction to go. But you have to still push yourself and your vision to the next level.
Is it ‘lazy’ creativity?
I have been experimenting with Midjourney myself and wanted to share some things that I created with the help of AI.
AI-Generated images that I created
And here are some colored AI-generated images:
So far as you can see I have mainly focused on people/portraits. I am quite excited to see where this tool will take me next. Also isn’t it mind-blowing that these are not photographs? Anyways, this was all for now and I am really looking forward to hearing your thoughts and comments! Please get in touch you can just reply to this email, I would love to discuss this further if it’s something you are interested in.
Next week I will share some of my own photographs from my travels again!
Lots of love,
Kotryna