There are things that you can not replace. Loved ones. Memories. Scents/smells.
And then there's the human element.
I had been deep in AI for about two months before taking this shoot with Olivia. Days before the shoot I realized the shoot had but one singular concept and purpose. Do what you can't with AI.
Luckily AI is (as of this writing), still so limited. I can not get a dutch angle or a low angle sometimes from certain models (like the new SDXL or even DreamshaperXL). It's damn near impossible to get the subject off the center. And there's very little control for focus or even depth of field.
With this picture there's so many "mistakes" that AI wouldn't make. My A7RV decided for whatever reason to grab focus on Olivia's shoulder. The crop while still reasonably upright, is shifted left and cuts off part of her head. I purposely left in some uneven skin tones (that I historically would have removed) because AI skin tends to be unrealistic and too perfect. It's ironic that I spent the better part of my years as a photographer/retoucher chasing perfection only now to turn my back on that perfection for the sake of realism.
The lack of perfection is what makes us human. And while we try so hard to be perfect, I think we often confuse excellence with perfection. The problem with perfection is that it is sterile. Like a laboratory clean room nothing grows (except the stuff in the petri dishes). Which is to say there are no happy accidents, no mutations, and lessons to be learned. Growth and learning come from making mistakes. Perfection doesn't allow for mistakes so it is the enemy of growth and learning.
And then there's the human element.
Trying to understand another human being. Communicating with that person. Becoming comfortable with that person. These are fairly basic requirements for working with human beings.
You get none of that with Stable Diffusion and Midjourney. Of course there's a lot of sharing on reddit and Discord about all things AI (especially with all the bugs that came out of SDXL breaking everything *cough ControlNet*) but online discussions aren't the same as human discussions. Not to say that human must be done in person but a lot of communication is lost when it's done online. Ask anyone who has done a Zoom meeting.
There's so much about being a photographer/retoucher that is already solitary in nature. I don't need more reasons to spend more time in my head, even if I am exceptionally effective, productive, and efficient all alone. But it's lonely in that vacuum. I've always that this theory that rich people become really strange because they are isolated from others. Their perversions go unchecked and eventually become them. Because if you're rich enough to tell people to fuck off, you stop hearing things like, "Hey Michael maybe it's not such a good idea to have sleepovers with little boys..."
Yes, I know I am saying this from behind a computer. From a place you've probably never visited. Most of you have not nor will ever meet me in person. Yet more and more I want to connect with people. It's why I am moving off Instagram as my main platform and voicing my ideas here. Blogger might be a dead platform but 1. It allows me to post my pictures without censorship 2. It allows me to say more than 2000 characters and 3. It allows people to have a better "conversation" without seeking likes, comments, and clickbacks.
I hope this journey continues with you all here. Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment