There’s been a good deal of “talk” on the Web lately about how the use of AI “photography” will be the end for us photographers. It’s the same warning cry we heard when digital cameras came around.
I’m not worried.
And the main reason I’m not worried:
Family portraits.
This is what I’ve been thinking about since my recent portrait session with a great young family. While I was making portraits of the mother and young daughter, Dad was snapping away over my shoulder with his cell phone.
Make no mistake, cell phones take really good pictures. The only problem is no one prints cell phone pictures. And years from now, after mom and dad have passed away, their daughter is not going to go searching the Cloud for a quick snapshot taken when she was a toddler. And even if she did, there’s no guarantee that that jpeg file will still be usable.
What this daughter will be able to do is to take the beautiful 16x20 framed print off her parents’ wall or down from the attic and hang it on her own wall so that her own daughter can marvel at how much she looks like her mom.
Another quick thought: most cell phones use what’s considered a wide-angle lens that is roughly equivalent to a professional camera’s 26mm lens. The problem with wide-angle lenses is that they distort the image if used too close. Portraits are usually taken pretty close and this accounts for many unflattering cell phone snaps.
A professional photographer uses professional equipment. What this means is that he uses the right equipment for the job: the right camera, the right lens, the right lighting. All of this will produce a beautiful and flattering image that you can have printed and framed and placed on your wall.
And generations from now, someone can look up on her wall and say, “So, that’s my family!”