I'm first going to preface this that I initially wrote this on my way to Nashville, Tennessee for my first PPA (Professional Photographers Association) convention. Little did I know what was going to unfold just a few short days later.
Over the past several months, I have listened to many industry professionals
either be in favor of artificial intelligence or be completely against it in regard to photography.
Before going in to my opinion on it, know that this is not something new that is headlining. It's only the latest trend we discuss as we workflow.
How many times have you used the internet to search, "Restaurants near me' or similar? What about going to a retailers app and doing a search for a particular product just to see if the Item you were looking for was obtainable through them? Thousands upon thousands of times and multiple times throughout the day, right? Trust me, I'm right there with you! I'm always searching for something that may make my life just a little bit easier. More than anything its just the ADHD in me, or at least I can blame it on that! How did those search engines get there? How does the browser know to link "Restaurants near me" to over forty various locations? While I am sure there are some magical unicorns in the background working the html code and all the technology of such, all of that goes way above my brain capacity. But how did they get there? As a young Cassandra, my family owned Commodore 64 computer. You know, the massive brick complete with a black screen and the lime green font...yep! That's the one! (For you younger one's, here's a picture of one)
I remember my pops having a print out of a bunch of numbers followed by a "." and then a
bunch more numbers and ".", So fourth and so on. When I asked him about it, he explained to me that it was the internet. He told me that this sequence of numbers take you to a particular place on the web. See, it's those magically unicorns! At that time, I was not aware that the internet was just a baby. According to Wikipedia, the internet was only born January 1, 1983 so in the grand scheme of everything it's not really all that old (considering the fact that I, too, was born in 1983!), when you think about how for technology has come over the past 40+ years, it's truly incredible of the advancement, You can either use it for you or not. Cameras themselves are no different as they have advanced over time as well. Every day items that we touch and or use are put in to production to make our lives easier. To be able to use time to our advantage. Artificial Intelligence isn't much different! It's here. It's been here for many years already. The only difference is that it is advancing and it's at a fast pace. This evolution will continue it's course cause that's just life.
The definition of Artificial Intelligence is the ability of computer systems to perform tasks that generally require human intelligence. While technology advances, it doesn't mean that people are less educated or are unintelligent. It means that we are finding ways to simplify tasks. Take a photography session for instance. Depending on the session, there could easily be 100 plus various images. Going through every single image to find "the best one" with eyes opened, full smile, hair smooth and in the right spot, etc. would take hours upon hours. Editing software programs have been out for several years and they are advancing their technology everyday. They are finding ways to give time back to the photographer. They want to see the photographer grow and excel. Do you really want to sit there and go image through image to see what file number meets the criteria you've chosen or would you rather click a button and have a program do this mundane task for you as you go off and enjoy life for however long you're able to get back? It's a simple return on investment. Time is money and we're all out here chasing that buck and using our skill, our art, our knowledge to create beautiful, breathtaking memories for our clients. Even our clients want that ROI. Some clients will pay extra to have images back sooner. They will pay to have that convience of a service.
Any time we deter from the original is artificial ...it's fake.. it's computer generated. Turning a blue dress to green? AI. Removing a chair in post-production because it depicts from the original? That's right - that's AI. One can either learn to embrace it and use it as a tool which it's been built for or be left behind in the dark, chasing the dollar while others have learned to use this tool to better themselves, their career, their knowledge and ultimately your experience as a client.
Now fast forward just a few days of when this was originally written. Words quickly spread throughout one of the biggest photography conventions of the year. Imagining 2026, photographers were furious. Several instantly cut ties with one of the fastest growing editing software developers on the market. Why? What was said? What was done? Luck would have it that some technology failed. A new update for this particular developer was in beta mode for headshot photographers and man did they miss the mark on it. Between poor verbiage and extremely ill timing, the damage was done. A tool that was in beta mode under this developer to aide in photographers workflow. AI is only going to get better, it is up to us, as photographers on how we are going to utilize it.
Lee Morris from Fstoppers interviews Jay Peterson from Evoto about the AI Headshot Generator debacle in this video. Now it's up to everyone on if they are willing to accept A.I. as a tool or be completely against it.
