We all want to improve our photography and create amazing images, right? We want to become more creative. Should we use technology to help us? Can it help us? I have some thoughts.
In the comments section of a recent article I wrote about finding our photography voice and style, Fstoppers community member Mark Sawyer wrote, “AI hides under your bed at night, whispering ‘I can make you more creative.’” I thought this was an intriguing line. I believe many people will look at AI as a quick and easy answer for producing more creative images—better than we can produce ourselves—by typing in just a few prompt words.
AI can help us develop ideas; it’s certainly a useful research tool. I can see the benefits of AI in a commercial environment. Content can be created quickly and cost-effectively. It’s a great tool to speed up production at a reduced cost. That’s a whole other discussion and article. What I’m looking at here is—will AI really help us be more creative with our photography? With our art.
No Soul
Sure, AI can create an impressive-looking image, an eye-catching piece of photographic art, but creativity is an expression of self. AI doesn’t have a self. It doesn’t have feelings or a soul.
Advertising guru Sir John Hegarty wrote recently, “An AI has never had its heart broken. Never watched a sunrise. Or swam in the sea. A bot has no life experience. And no soul. Without this last thing, there is no ‘art.’”
For me, great photographic art is self-expression based on life experiences and how those experiences make us feel. A computer algorithm knows nothing of this. My best photographs are where I’ve caught a special moment, where someone is feeling something, and you experience that feeling through their eyes, getting a glimpse into their soul. Can typing in a few words about how we feel be enough to have an algorithm create something that represents those thoughts and feelings visually? Authentically?
Left: A moment of pure joy, my dad savouring a pint in his favourite pub. Right: A friend who has lived a tough life, reflecting on that. I can see it in his eyes, they take you to his soul. These are authentic images, capturing emotion and feeling in the moment. something AI can never replace.
Photographing people is the obvious place where communicating feelings and evoking emotions can be the most powerful and least effectively created by AI. But what about something like landscape photography? Many landscape photos are just pretty scenes we capture, and AI can create something similar. However, there are times when I’m in the landscape, and the location and conditions make me feel a certain way and want to communicate that through my photos.
I was traveling through Spain a few years ago, in an area steeped in history and culture, where misty, rainy weather is common. I ended up with a photo that encapsulated that for me—something moody, dark, yet with a hint of positivity as the morning sun rose. Can AI create something if I use some words that describe the physical location and feelings and mood I felt at the time?
I played with various prompt words, trying to describe the scene, and this (below) was the best result I could get. Does the AI version evoke as much feeling and mood as the original created from actually being there? I don’t think it’s even close.
To paraphrase Johnny Rotten in the song “EMI”—just because it came into my head right now and I decided to type it—“I can’t stand those useless tools, there’s an unlimited supply (of AI). Goodbye AI, goodbyyyyyeeee.”
If Not With AI, How Do You Become More Creative?
A question I’ve been asked a few times is, where does my creative inspiration come from?
I think about creativity a lot. How do you become more creative? It’s an important topic to discuss.
My biggest inspiration might be travel. Exploring the world, observing, soaking up different cultures, art, architecture, ways of life, ways of communicating.
I find posters in different countries inspirational. Like a photo, a poster is a form of communication and is often very representative of the local culture. It can be a work of art in itself.
How we lived during our formative years plays a huge role in how we see and what we like. It’s a good idea to use that and channel it into creative ideas. I was brought up during tough and rebellious times in England. The Sex Pistols and The Clash came onto the music scene, and the photographers who worked with them and the album art created; this all influenced my creativity and aesthetic sensitivities, and I carry this inspiration with me today.
At art college, learning photography and visual communications, we put a lot of time toward studying art and design history. We analyzed the images that caught our attention, breaking down and discussing why they appealed so much. We looked at composition and how lighting was used, how these things can affect the viewer’s perception and evoke emotion.
We studied classical painters to mid-20th-century designers. Being exposed to so much creativity was a massive influence.
Sure, AI can analyze these painters from different eras, but it sees only form, colors, and aesthetic style. AI doesn’t see the emotions that are evoked in the art, which is the point of them.
AI sees the tangible, yet the intangible is often what matters the most.
Creativity needs to be fed to grow.
Conclusion
Exploring the world—even if it’s a town local to you—and observing how people live and communicate is inspirational.
Creativity comes from inspiration.
Studying the best artists and photographers from history is a fantastic way to educate yourself about creativity. My advice is to go to art galleries, go to the library, and dig out old art and design books to study.
I strongly believe those who seek creative inspiration by venturing out into the world with an open mind and curiosity have an advantage.
AI is a great research tool, and yes, it has its uses for things like cleaning up photos, cloning out unwanted objects, etc. But to create photographic art with true meaning and expression, I don’t believe AI is up to the task. The greatest art is created from life experiences and feelings, not an algorithm and search bot.
What do you think—is AI important for you? Where do you get your inspiration from to feed your creativity?
IMHO, the most important thing AI has already done for photography is to give it value. This invaluable contribution has brought photographers closer to being artists.
In the past, the effort was primarily in painting a landscape, while photography was not seen as valuable. Now, the paradigm is shifting, and photography gains value through the unique perspective and effort of the photographer to capture a picturesque scene. Meanwhile, AI-generated landscapes have become accessible and mass-produced.
However, as I understand, you are comparing a professionally taken photograph with an amateur AI prompt. A specialist working with neural networks would likely achieve a slightly more convincing result. And this is today, while AI is still in its infancy. Tomorrow, the results will be indistinguishable... which will further increase the value of a photographer’s work, placing them on par with artists who paint with watercolors or oils.
AI may not directly enhance your creativity, but it will help you in one way or another.
Really great perspective, thanks for sharing. I agree about photographers creating unique art and creating more value. I believe many people will seek original photographic work over AI, just like people are choosing analogue photography or digital, or vinyl records over digital.
Certainly, this would be the case with photographic art, although commercial photography will be a different story.
Exactly. The same happened with commercial illustration after the 50's, when it was substituted with photography. Product and fashion photography will have similar perspectives, I think.
I'm curious where it will go. AI is already influencing and corrupting politics with deepfake images and videos, and letting movie makers invent the impossible on screen. And while it is already creating interesting debates in the Art and creative photography worlds, it will likely become a tacky Instagram filter for the masses, so everyone can morph a bad snapshot of their house into a Thomas Kinkade painting, complete with twinkling candlelight in the windows and wisps of smoke from the chimney, and teenage boys can make dirty pictures of their English teachers.
And from there, it will only get worse. How do I know? We're humans...
I like your thinking. I wish I had AI when I was a schoolboy. Our very attractive teacher, she was barely 20. 😊
So you're saying you would have liked to have seen her rendered as a Thomas Kinkade painting?
Sure, i'll take that. So long as it's not Picasso. 😁
Maybe, maybe not. If it makes you a lazier photographer who depends too much on AI, then perhaps your innate creativity may take a hit. On the other hand, AI could also unleash a range of possibilities to transform photographic art into something incredibly new and cool. The question really is this: is it the view of the creator that matters most, or is it the view of the viewer of those photos? The answer to your initial question may rest on our answer to that question.
AI will only be good for automating a few tasks that are time consuming such as dust removal or applying a colour profile across multiple images without you needing to make any adjustments. Other than that, it offers no help to my creativity.
"In the comments section of a recent article I wrote about finding our photography voice and style, Fstoppers community member Mark Sawyer wrote, “AI hides under your bed at night, whispering ‘I can make you more creative.’”
Oh yeah, blame it on me... ;)
I suppose one could argue that AI is just another tool, like auto-focus or auto-exposure. But when it becomes auto-creativity, we've lost something. As Simon says, (sorry...), there is no sentience or sapience behind it, only a cannibalism of other work and algorithms trying to match a prompt.
Perhaps with the proper prompting, AI can produce something slick and complex, even soulful or thought-provoking, but it has no thoughts or soul of its own.
So is it Art? Ever since a hundred years ago, when Marcel DuChamp entered a urinal in an avant garde art exhibition, "Art" has been whatever someone says is Art, so yes, AI can produce Art. But not on its own, not because it has something to say. And it's probably the kind of Art you don't want to step in.
Alas yes, art can be whatever people say it is. I still shake my head in dismay when I recall Tracy Emin displaying her slept-in bed in the Tate and claiming it was art, and then selling it for $2.5 million.
That may have been a bargain, as $2.5 million wouldn't buy you half of the banana duct-taped to a gallery wall. Some Art is just stunts, but that's a whole 'nuther topic...
Ah yes, I recently read about the banana. When one lacks talent and desires attention, this is the answer.