Disillusion

Just a brief note about...disillusion.

These days, I have high-on-photography days and I have down-on-photography days. On my bad photography days, I can get so I'm just not sure how I feel about "photography" any more. I hate to say that.

It started long ago with what I then called digital imaging. The image from a sensor isn't an optical-chemical impression of the lens image—it's a map of the lens image. A map made out of tiny little squares. And the map can be manipulated, in such a way that you can't tell it's been manipulated. The problem there was that if you can't tell if it has been, then you don't know it wasn't—so you have to approach all images as if they might have been manipulated. It changes the relationship of the medium to the truth.

I would say I used to approach photographs confident that there was always some kind of truth there that could be coaxed out of them. The reward of photographs—that "slap of truth"—was in there and could be drawn out. Now, I approach all photographs with distrust, eyes narrowed in suspicion so to speak. My default assumption is that somebody is trying to fool me, or doesn't care about lying, or that the idea of "truth" simply wasn't valued enough to be considered. I come to trust a photograph, if I come to trust it at all, slowly and with a feeling of caution. It's been a big change.

I'm in the minority, I guess.

Regarding our tools...as a photo-writer, my position, historically, was that I wanted photographers to have whatever they needed to do their work. (I do have what I need.) Years ago when digital came around I worried that we'd become too dependent on the cameras the makers offered us, that cameras would be driven toward a lowest common denominator. That the manufacturers would drive down the quality of digital cameras to what the vast general public would accept. Of course it wasn't the manufacturers that did this; they're still fighting the good fight. It turned out to be phones that did it, in the process pulling off a rather breathtaking robbery of a huge market from the industry that used to own it. The process is far from complete; the sky isn't falling. We still have good cameras. But it's headed in that direction. The eventual end point would be a world in which every camera manufacturer goes bankrupt and we're left with nothing but a vast sea of billions of phones. With the illusion that they're connected, when actually we'd all be marooned on millions of tiny islands.

Then there's the tsunami. This relates to culture. Over many decades, and with painful slowness and in fits and starts, people who loved photography built up a culture of shared values and goals, a conversation that took place through photobooks and museum shows and dedicated practitioners building portfolios. An idea of a flow of movement and progress that was at least sensible if not always strictly defensible. There were movements and major figures and trends and innovation and competing ideas. And accomplishments you could point to. The work of Ralph Gibson. The Dusseldorf School. The view camera revival of the '70s. Now, there are a trillion photographs a year. Online, there are billions of new images a day. So why do I get the distinct and persistent feeling that I'm seeing less photography now than I did when I was 25? I think it's because everything gets lost in the tremendous destructive wave of more work than anyone can possibly pay attention to. Voices that keep trying to point out cultural markers are plaintive and lost, if not trite and quaint. Tell me, what is the new generation of serious photographers, the ones who have come along in the last ten years? What are their shared concerns? How do they influence each other? Get serious. You can't call out any of that. It doesn't exist. Do curators matter? Do critics matter? Are museums showing new work by new photographers? Sporadically, maybe. They take a stab at it here and there. But mainly there are ten thousand little subcultures online, but no conversation between them. Hell, not even any awareness by any one of them that more than a few of the others even exist.

Then there's the ugly Stegosaurus in the living room swinging his tail this way and that: AI. In art school (1982–85), I wrote a little spoof about cameras of the future. You'd point the camera and it would say, nah, that's not a good composition—shutter release denied. Here, we'll put in a better sky. We'll take out this and add that. All meant to be a lampoon of fakery and the oppressiveness of mass taste. Well, it was also a primitive, crude description of what AI now promises. (I wish I still had it, so I could actually compare.) I'll be honest: the threat of AI makes me want to walk away from photography forever, just wash my hands of it. Start writing about electric cars or some other coming thing. It's the opposite of everything I value. I haven't got a clear idea of what "Apple Intelligence" means or what it threatens to be, but it seems that some image-editing programs are already offering built-in AI. The thought of AI being built into cameras would be the fulfillment of my worst nightmares about everything I loved about photography.

I know a photography curator at a major museum who once said to me, in private, "I miss photography." Weird, but I can relate.

But as I say, maybe I'm just having a bad day. Good days will return. Got to get the camera out and go for a nice walk....

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Paul Bass: "I recall commenting to a post some years ago, scoffing at some new camera model, saying 'It still doesn't tell you where to point it.' To which you responded, 'Don't tempt them!' It looks like we're there."

XK50: "Yer, I miss photography, at an enthusiast’s level, that is. Although using adapted, old, manual-focus lenses (Nikkors, Topcor REs, Takumars, and especially Zuikos that 'fit' well), on today’s mirrorless cameras can get close to the feel of doing it, for me. Manual focus forces you to look at the scene, in front of you, and select. (Clearly, not so useful for the sports photographer etc.). I miss the old craft of photography, too—but don’t miss the drudgery of assembling, then putting away, darkroom kit, in an average (then) British kitchen or bathroom, with their attendant temperature control difficulties. It was a sad day, when Diafine disappeared.

"But most of all, I think I miss prints! We don’t print enough, these days. It is easier to stare, think about and critique work, with a print in front of you—viewed close, viewed further away. Writing this, I’ve realised, though, that with auto this and auto that (and worse to come!), what is maybe redundant (not dead) is the thinking about photography. So, maybe photography isn’t dead, after all. Maybe it’s just slipped our consciousness, for a while?"

David Littlejohn: "My bottom line with cameras, photo software, and printers is 'Can you make art with it?' At the moment, the answer is 'Yes.' We’ll see how the future unfolds; but right now the tools work just fine. At least for me."

Andy Munro: "What's a timely post, one that I can relate to. I have just bought myself a new Pentax 17 half frame 35mm camera. It is not a perfect camera though. I've only just started with it. Everything I remember about photography is there from the anticipation of getting the film developed to the unknown exposure. Frustration with a mode dial that can move when you wind the film. I must check and double check. It is bringing something back that I missed about photography. I'm now trying out various films to see which I will use. The magic is back. I must stress that the photos are for my enjoyment."

Sean Keane: "I lived the first half of my life in a low-trust neighbourhood. I won’t pretend I was a maths genius growing up, but I instinctively knew that zero-sum games were playing out in minor and major ways. Naturally, this has a wearing effect on your ability to trust. But you adapt to the demands and stop complaining about it; it's the operating system of your micro-culture. My biggest trouble came in leaving my neighbourhood, and the life I was living, for one with higher trust. I made many prediction errors in the early days. I was operating under the old system in a new environment—a costly mismatch.

"Things improved when I started trusting more and questioning less. It freed me from being stuck in a loop of hyper-vigilance and cynicism. The real surprise was that I didn’t code-switch when I visited my old neighbourhood. I decided to try trusting, hoping it would pay off in the long run. I’ve taken the odd hit, accepting that I might, but in the long run, it’s a better state of mind. Not only that, but people respond to you in new and better ways, creating a virtuous circle.

"Mike, it looks like photography has become a low-trust environment for you. You could leave your old neighbourhood and write about electric cars. But there will be some writers equal to you on that subject, and many better. When it comes to photography, though, you are almost peerless; your reputation is well-deserved; you have repaid your readers’ trust tenfold. I doubt someone could replicate what you’ve done with TOP, and when you can post no longer, I hope what you've created lives on as a whisper to arms.

"Until then, turn from disillusion to resolution: trust in trust."

Comments

[Keith Cartmell]

I got into photography late in life, and late in the technology progression. I'd done some film point and shoot, erratically. Then an iPhone 4 triggered, or re-ignited a love of images. Then it was a "real" digital camera (a T6i, if you're interested) while I figured out how to do it.

The fun now is a pair of film cameras, and starting next week I'll be taking some negatives into a darkroom at SAIT. Yes, it's old fashioned. Yes it's infinitely slower than an image on an iphone sent around the world via satellite. Yes, it's more work than importing into Lightroom and moving some sliders. Yes, it's harder to share the print. I don't care. It's my art. Nobody else might know I did it myself without the help of a computer (for better or worse) but I'll know.

The people that want to produce AI generated digital art can fill their boots, but I'm not interested.

[Gary Merken]

Photographs as truth? When was that *ever* the case? Photo manipulation goes back way before the advent of digital photography.

In 1994, TIME magazine got in huge trouble for publishing on its cover a version of O.J. Simpson's mugshot that was doctored to make his skin look darker than it was.

Remember all those times the Soviet Union would manipulate photos? Some general or political figure got in trouble (or worse), and suddenly his image would be airbrushed out of official photographs.

Among other characters, Henrik Ibsen's play THE WILD DUCK, published in 1884, featured Hjalmar Ekdal and his wife Gina. They were photographers who also retouched photographs to earn some income.

[Kye Wood]

Great post Mike.

Honesty is always a compelling read.

Coincidentally, yesterday I chose not to buy a new Google Pixel phone purely because of the AI photo 'features' that make every photo an image of what wasn't happening at the time.

[ritchie thomson]

I have just given up photography, my cameras are on ebay and the lenses will follow. Partly for the reasons you state, but mainly because I have realised that while I am happy composing photos with a digital camera, I just dont like the rest, its computing not photography. I spend enough time on the computer for work. Hence I have thousands of images not processed, not printed. So whats the point? I loved the darkroom, but have no space anymore. I tried to like the processes of digital, but I dont. As for the photos I see in publications, etc, many are just too much, amazing in some ways, but often lacking in subtlety or charm. I'm giving it up and spending more time with my guitar, I genuinely hope to start a band when I retire next year.

[darlene]

It might be therapeutic for you to shoot a roll of 135 B&W film every now and then. There’s something about the film process that brings a unique kind of satisfaction, almost like hitting a reset button for creativity.

For me, the creative process has always been the most rewarding part. Whether it’s photography, graphic design, music, or cooking, I find joy in creating. Sure, it could be seen as physical work if I focused on the time and energy involved, but that’s not how I experience it. It’s more of an immersion, where time seems to stand still.

Last Christmas, I treated myself to a new air fryer oven when it went on sale, and learning to cook with it has been a fantastic experience. It turned out to be exactly what I needed to experiment with new dishes and enhance my cooking these days. Cooking does not have to be so much work if you discover the right tools and recipes.

Reflecting on all the photography I was paid to do during the film days, I can honestly say that digital would have made some things easier and more convenient. But that doesn’t diminish my love for photography today, whether I’m shooting digitally, or with 4x5 and 120 film. I truly enjoy it all.

I understand what it feels like when a major change is necessary for happiness. Not to drift too far from photography, but I became completely disillusioned with relationships. I stayed in my marriage longer than I wanted for the sake of my child, which only deepened my fear of committing to another relationship. However, I’ve found peace in rearranging my life, focusing on my happiness, and making the changes I needed to feel free again.

Sometimes, those big shifts are essential for us to truly move forward. And if writing about something other than photography helps lift that weight for you, I fully support it. I’m here for the writing, but adding some visuals alongside the words would make it even more fulfilling.

P.S. Your dystopian photography story seems a bit bleak, but that’s not how I see it at all. ---> You can always go back to film. :)

[JH]

Ah, it's "Grumpy Tuesday." I have those days too.
"Start writing about electric cars or some other coming thing."
I look at electric vehicles like you do at digital photography. Take an object that has pizzaz from sleek looks to beautiful metal parts to nice noise to stimulating the physical senses in its use and turn it into a soulless wad of technology that is about as much fun to use as a smartphone - efficient but without sensual feedback.
A guy in our building had an Alfa Stelio SUV until his lease ran out recently. He converted to a Tesla SUV and after a couple of months told me he missed the Alfa a lot - it had personality and was pleasurable - while the Tesla was dull and boring. And a car's dashboard made from a cheap tablet hung on the center of the dash was an affront to all car designers everywhere.
Digital cameras have become like that. Cameras of the the 60s, 70s, 80s were neat blocks of metal with class - made you proud to be seen using it, but by the 90s cameras morphed into ergonomic blobs with buttons and displays when they became digital. Note how the classy cameras today mimic the looks of the earlier metal bodies.
I follow AI - have since I attended a seminar on it at MIT Medial Lab in the late 90s - and it's just another bunch of hype that will burn out soon when Wall Street and hedge funds find another unicorn. Besides I heard recently that 90% of all the photos and video created by AI is porn - that seems tone the driving force behind much new tech.
The best story about AI recently is that people are finding out that it creates misinformation - hallucinating - that gets put online so other AI feeds on this misinformation in a endless, destructive loop.

[james carcel sr]

It is called progress or technology depression or I don't know. I like digital it is less of a pollutant imho. I built a darkroom back then and have converted some of that work to digital. Love the Tri-X Philly photos of the 80's. And our boys young. As for AI i think it is exaggerated balony. And I worked in technology since DOS. AI is based on human interaction and input. The sky is often falling but somehow we get through. Digital phones are just the latest Polaroid. This too shall pass. james

[Jeff Hartge]

1) Something similar can be found in, amusingly, Rick Beato's video titled "The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse".
2) When images were harder to produce, people were consuming the same "limited" images and therefore there was more of a shared experience. This is touched upon by Beato in the above video and by you in the Tsunami paragraph.
3) Photography was never "true". It was always artificial. For most two eyed persons, a photograph has always been an abstraction. Then there is the temporal abstraction...a moment frozen. Next is the photographer mistruths by image capture choices: subject selection, staging, timing, use of perspective, etc. Not immediately believing images is a good thing.

[Robert Roaldi]

People will post whatever lousy uncurated unthoughtful crap they want on web sites, what's the point worrying about them. Write for the rest.

On really bad days, visit museums.

[Dave Levingston]

Yea. Me too.

[Kenneth Wajda]

Mike, get out that Exakta and start shooting some film. You don't have to be limited by the onslaught of digital and AI technology. Film is your pal and it never went away.

I've been working on a street portrait series all summer using a Rolleiflex and I can't imagine using a digital camera to make photos like these, nor would I want to. https://rolleiflexers.com/kenneth-wajda

So, get out there and shoot some film and go back to your roots. You might enjoy the simplicity of the process and no need for any computerization.

[mani]

> The thought of AI being built into cameras would be the fulfillment of my worst nightmares about everything I loved about photography.

Google Pixel 9 phones already have the feature built-in:

https://www.wired.com/story/all-the-new-generative-ai-camera-features-in-google-pixel-9-phones/

Hope this doesn't spoil your day.

[SUMANTA MUKHERJEE]

I am fine with all sorts of lies, made-ups (read stories) in an art form called photography.
What I can not accept is a creation with no human mind involved directly in that creation, and that includes AI to photo from a sensor with poop on it (by deliberate accident).
With the me, I am part now imparted in photographs from selfies to everything else, what we see less is the expression of a theme, topic, story, feeling of a split second or say an uncanny feel that sensor or film is showing barring everything else that the other eye could see there.

I am happy with my world of photography, most of the time, as I go out to see other work a lot less now. Cliche has become too cliche now with too many same trials, same track of photography journey by millions again, everyday.

But when I see that I have not changed much in my photography, I am not saying neither something different nor something deeper or better in my same topics, I go out to see other's work.

[Chris Bertram]

Thanks for this Mike. I've been gathering materials for something I've been meaning to write about the the idea of progress and the reaction that anyone on social media gets if they assert that things were in some respects better in the past. I guess there are parallels in other media too. Printing, for example, where a technology that had been perfected for centuries was quickly ditched in favour of digital reproduction. The new wasn't actually as good, but it was good enough and far cheaper. So it goes.

[Marco]

Hi Mike,

you hit me where I live (I learned the term from you..).
You and your readers might be interested in this brief reading https://leicaphilia.com/the-advent-and-death-of-photographic-realism/ from Tim Vanderweert.
Not long ago I discovered Tim's blog and I wonder if you already know it because although with different background stories his and your blogs are on the same wavelength.

[Dave Millier]

I just ignore social media and phone camera work. Instantly, billions of photos are removed from the equation. There is still a lot of work left to worry about, but now it is manageable. And as far as AI and photography is concerned, just ignore it. You have a nice basic camera set up, just do your work, it doesn't matter what else is going on. You are not bound to follow trends.

I "discovered" this guy called Clyde Butcher who stands in swamps under the dark cloth of a 10x8 view camera and produces splendid work. How ridiculous is that in the modern world, but he carried on regardless.

[Thomas Rink]

Regarding the slow progress of photography as an Art form in recent times, I think this fits into a bigger picture. It is my impression that development (or progress) in the fields of science, culture and art has slowed down considerably in the last 30 years, at least compared against the time span between, say, 1900 and 1930. Of course, I may be wrong; after 100 years, failures are all but forgotten, and we only remember groundbreaking work which "stood the test of time".

On the other hand, this should not deter us from taking pictures and creating work. We-you and me-are not "the others". If we do not do it, who else should? At least for me, these creative endeavors are part of myself.

[Speed]

If not for "digital imaging" I would have stopped taking pictures (or taken far fewer) several decades ago.

Oh! Look at the deer over there. A doe with her two babies. Eating apples from the tree in our back yard. What a great picture. Let me get my camera. Only one shot left on the roll. Where's the film I bought last week. "Honey! Where's the film? Did you move it?"

Deer's gone. Tired of waiting. Maybe next time.

The report of my death was an exaggeration.
--Mark Twain

[Alan Whiting]

Maybe it would help if we thought of photographs as we think of paintings (of the realistic schools): in principle, a depiction of a scene or person or whatever, but subject to manipulation by the painter. I went to a show of landscape photographs (analog) at the French embassy some years ago, and overheard another viewer say something like, "That one would be much better if the tree were over there!" --which struck me as the attitude of a painter, not a photographer. Now, of course, it would be routine in either medium.

[Alan]

People have been manipulating photographs since photography was invented. It's not a new thing. It's not just a digital days thing. I'm sure you know this.

[s.wolters]

Partir c‘est mourir un peu. Tomorrow I am taking my Rolleiflex to a shop that made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Prices for this kind classic masterpieces are skyrocketing. I only shoot color and for me film got far too expensive. Also my simple Canon photo printer with its high quality papers and ink is way better than the results I get from any filmlab in town.
Digital photography has been full of A.I. from the start. RGB processing is just one example. The main practical difference between my camera and my smartphone is that I got the former completely under control and the the latter surprises me all the time. It’s a bit like Polaroid. You never know what to expect.

The Times They Are A-Changin’ and that’s also a part of the fun of life. But why so many men after all those years are still wearing neckties puzzles me most.

[Andrew L]

Regarding the "tsunami" as you call it, I believe the best thing that a photographer who wants to get serious can do is to practice subtraction, rather than addition. Hold back, consider your impulses to publish or share work, your motivations for taking the shot, your influences, etc. Then only show a small fraction of the work you deem worthy.

Will that get you popularity? Absolutely not. But, over time, you might develop a body of work that actually means something. We all have to decide whether we want a tiny bit of notoriety in the deluge, or a firm place to plant our feet, even if that means being relatively isolated. I think I am slowly reforming into the latter.

[robert e]

IMO, the confusion wrought by the marketing of simulated intelligence as "artificial intelligence" is far more dangerous at the moment than actual artificial intelligence, which is a long way away, if it's even possible. Unfortunately, we're in the process of handing unprecedented resources and power and every corner of our lives to corporations and individuals peddling various simulations of this sci-fi bogeyman as the real thing.

Re digital photography: My understanding is that with a true monochrome sensor, as opposed to a sensor with a color matrix, the data doesn't need to be interpolated--it can simply be read out as array data and transposed into an image. In a world of calculated, massaged, polished or downright fake images, then, the monochrome sensor is rebellion. (At least in theory. I'm not so clear what a processing engine that expects Bayer-array data does to data from a scraped sensor, or how the processing in dedicated monochrome cameras differs from that in color cameras.)

But now that photographs are both created and presented in a medium whose very elements we can directly and infinitely manipulate, including automated synthesis, alchemy is no longer involved, and with it any possibility or suggestion of magic. That is not to say that photography is suddenly unable to capture the alchemy or magic of life around us. On the contrary, digital photography can do that better and more clearly than ever, I think, without imposing its own alchemy on it, however beautiful. But it was often beautiful, so of course we miss it.

On the other hand--and I wish I could recall my most recent encounter with this phenomenon, in a photo essay in a national news outlet--while analog photography has not disappeared, recent examples are often of disappointing quality.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that it's the alchemists I really miss, not the alchemy.

[Lothar Adler]

In recent years I've often had the impression that many photographers behave as if shooting with film is forbidden, it's almost like being brainwashed (I'm exaggerating just a little). In a commercial environment or when it has to be "quick and dirty", then you can use the advantages of digital,- but in personal photography, where you want to please your heart and soul, you can still shoot on film,- it's really not forbidden (smile).
The darkroom for prints is actually the biggest hurdle (space, time, money). But if you use camera scanning, the problem is largely solved.
Smarty-pants people will now reflexively say that these are no longer analog images. I think this statement is wrong, because the essential features of photography on film, its analog character, are contained in the image on film. If the scan is done well, then these characteristics are merely transferred to a digital medium without adding any relevant characteristics of their own.
If you look at a photo book with classic photography, no one will say that you are now looking at digital photos just because the photos have gone through the stages of reproduction and printing.
So if you have a love and passion for photography on film, then it makes sense to do the commercial and "quick and dirty" photography digitally and the personal photography for your heart and soul on film.
If you leave a small, stationary set-up for camera scanning in the corner of your home, digitization is quite fast and, if done right, has an impressive quality - together with the analogue image feel.
So there is no reason to despair.

The direction in which society and the industry are heading is a completely different universe, but one that you don't have to adopt, albeit it seems sad.

[John Camp]

If you have billions of photos being taken every day, who could alter them? Who would even want to? It would take a computer the size a planet to do the work, and 99^10 of that work would be absolutely pointless. I use my cell phone camera to take pictures of the coffee creamer selection at the supermarket, and send it to my wife, so she can tell me if I'm choosing the kind she prefers. If that kind of transaction accounts for most of the billions of photos taken every day, or photos of cats and dogs...

As for "serious" art photography, did you believe paintings? If you did or didn't, why would your attitude toward art photographs be any different?

The biggest problem, as I see it, would be in documentary photography where news-type images may be altered for political or economic reasons, just as written reports can be and. often are. These kinds of changes are already being done, obviously, but I think that's just a technical problem that will soon be fixed: possibly by public key cryptography generated by cameras and embedded in photos at a pixel-level basis that wouldn't change an image, but could be used by anyone to verify its originality.

At the moment, we're in a kind of rapidly changing environment where truth hasn't quite caught up with deception, but I believe it will. And I believe the whole AI thing is vastly overblown. It'll wind up being a better google that. people will choose to use, or not.

[Steve Biro]

The solution, Mike, may be simply to practice photography as you see it for yourself. If the rest of the world is oohing and aching over AI-generated images, fine. There’s nothing you can do about it.

The question is, with computational imaging so much a part of the iPhone shooting experience, do you plan to continue using your iPhone?

On the other hand, does a difference that makes no difference amount to a difference at all? As we get older and (allegedly) gain more wisdom, does being a purist make any sense at all? This is a sincere question - not just for you, Mike, but for myself and all of us here. And it’s not limited to photography.

[Stan B.]

You are (having an understandably bad day), and the solution is exactly as you prescribed...

I'm not as worried about all the components of demise that are currently attacking (traditional) photography, as you've described; they don't affect me personally- the one 'luxury' of being detached from any popular movement, I suppose. Other than photograph and process (ie- edit) my images digitally, I don't (for the most part) alter my photographs any more than I did in analog- the process is just easier, and (somewhat) less expensive.

As far as trusting 'photographic' images to be truthful or faithful to the reality it purportedly depicts- photography is far from the only realm of deception we need worry about these days, but perhaps it is our biggest reminder...

[Yves Papillon]

In a review of Monet : The Restless Vision in this week New Yorker, the author of the review writes < All of which nurtures the feeling that this picture (On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt) was painted in the first person : that its maker was somebody and nobody else, sitting here and nowhere else at this time and no other. > Replace < painted > with < taken > and it is applicable to photography, not AI. With AI, the maker is the computed sum of a number of predecessors, siting at a computer far from life, in an indefinite time frame.

[JOHN B GILLOOLY]

While I agree with the general frustration, why not simply decide that what you are interested in is actual photography. It can be film or digital but you want the image to depict an actual moment in time that really occurred. There may be a small gray area that finds a certain amount of editing acceptable, or not. I have the same dis-interest in the over-edited, the faked and the AI. I guess my answer is that I am simply not interested in engaging with it. I don't need to preach about what is and what is not "real" photography. All I can do is engage with photography that I like. There may be a trillion images per year being made, but the quantity of images being made that I am really interested in probably hasn't changed much in the last 50 years?

[Andrew]

I can't help you when it comes to AI malaise but there are certainly a new generation of serious photographers who have come along in the last ten years (ok maybe twenty years) to enjoy. Many chose the photobook as their primary medium. A few that come to mind for me are Kristine Potter, Carolyn Drake, Curran Hatleberg, Gregory Halpern, Bryan Schutmaat, Matthew Genitempo, Zoe Strauss, Jonas Bendiksen. I'm sure there are many others.

[Ronny Nilsen]

If you want images that you somewhat can trust to be based on reality, it will have to be a digital image, and IEEE have published a way to do this: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7546506

And with cameras that attach digital signatures to photographs, you can see the starting point of any image before post processing.

As for AI I don't really see any difference between that and a PhotoShop artist creating an image or a painter. It's not photography (capturing photons in the wild) even if the end result might look similar and end up as a jpeg file. Just as fiction and nonfiction is not the same just because the end result is a printed book. One is created from the imagination, the other is based in facts.

What do bother me is when someone claims that fiction is a nonfiction book or AI generated image is a photograph.

Transparency is key.

[Nigel]

Your article, express the same sentiments that I am experiencing of late, regarding photography.

I love my digital cameras, they allow me to do things I could never do with film, and I can explore a subject to a deeper level. as film cost is irrelevant.

Yes, photography, as we of a certain age know it, is dead. Conceptual art has gobbled up photography, with a never ending procession of "here today gone tomorrow" artists "who use photography". We have an important photo festival in my city, and it is almost totally conceptual photography. Maybe some long dead photographer is thrown into the mix. Forget seeing any thing like "Documentary" or photojournalism in the HCB mould. Social comment is out of fashion. Masturbatory navel gazing is the new normal in photography. I will weep if I see another self pseudo phycological self exploration in some photographers bedroom. Or family members posed in awkward poses.

Digital is not the cause of the death of photography. The art gallery system and art schools are the real culprits.

I have a reasonable collection of photographic monographs. Over the last few years I have bought fewer and fewer monographs. It must be a couple of years since I have added a book to my collection. The photographic section of my local bookshops is ever more dominated by reprints of the same old faces. Do we really need another edition of the Americans. Is there not anybody out thre doing something new in this genre? Or we have hyper colour coffee table books, including endless volumes by that well known travel photography faker.

I would say 90% of digital images that pass my screen are over processed and probably over cloned too. Weeding out most of the fakes is quite easy. AI will make things worse. As you say thre is massive oversupply.

Harking back to your last post. Rock music is in much the same place. Jazz my favourite music is a deluge of new releases. It is almost impossible to find the good new stuff amongst the weeds.

[Keith B]

I am sympathetic to your thoughts and feelings about the value of photography in the digital/AI/disinformation age. Personally, I'm still excited about catching scenes in the magic box, but how will any random viewer know that what I've presented to them isn't fake?

[Tim Medley]

“... you see photography everywhere, it’s like bricks, you know.” - Robert Frank, 1972(?)

[Jeff1000]

I enjoy digital photography more than I ever enjoyed shooting film. I never enjoyed mixing chemicals, controlling temperatures of said chemicals, and even the somewhat frustrating process of making contact and finished prints. Maybe I just wasn't very good at it. I did, however, enjoy hanging out in my closet darkroom feeling impervious to the world, like I was in a cocoon.

I'm mostly happy shooting digital: my results are certainly superior to my output shooting film. I'm not discouraged by AI, or the loss of an element of truthfulness in modern photography. The truth is that I don't muchcare what people think, or if they question the veracity of my photography. In fact very few, descending to no one, sees my photography, on the most part, and I'm OK with that. The gist of this is that I take photographs for my own enjoyment. I know the truth. I completely see photography as a means of artistic expression, along with other artistic media that I enjoy: music, writing, even playing chess. As far as earning money through one's art, it's like oil and water. I just don't see much correlation between the two, like comparing Ansel Adam's landscapes with Dianne Arbus's portraits. So I'm able to enjoy my photography, and suffer no crisis of doubt.

[ike]

it is ok to miss what used to be, but it is not okay to think that what you miss is how it was. memory plays tricks.
is digital easy to manipulate seamlessly? yes. does it make the world less trustworthy no? photographs should generally never have been trusted. film speed, aperture, lens choice, perspective, filters, lighting, props flash are all manipulations. the fact that things are manipulated before capture, or during doesn't change what they are.

to me photography is about sharing an emotion, the manipulations make it easy to do that. i don't trust photos, they are by definition a manipulation of the world. i do however trust people (to an extent). and trust takes time to build and is effortlessly lost. trust is under assault by the internet, not in any malicious way, but because trust takes time and personal relationship, the internet is all about speed and anonymity. i would much rather talk to someone in person once a year than read their social media everyday, it isn't a conversation and it isn't personal.

now for me, i love to share prints with people, and i find that people react much more honestly to one or two prints that they can hold, than they do to digital slideshows. it is the sharing of the emotion that keeps me motivated, sometimes it is the sharing of my own emotion with myself that without photography i never would've noticed. It allows me to see the world from a new perspective, and this helps me to find some new truths about the world, because truth isn't about simplification, it is about complexity, to shine a new perspective on something and share that with someone really enriches my time here.

[Andy Munro]

Mike,

As an addendum to my comment. The point of my response was to say film has truth behind it. It is refreshing to use this simplicity again.

Andy

[Jason Scher]

While it is certainly tempting to feel that photography is that artistic medium with a heretofore unique relationship to the truth, this has always been illusory.

A photograph is always its own object, regardless of how convincingly it portrays another.

To put it another way, photographs may not be falsehoods, but they have always been fictions.

[TexAndrews]

You're just having a bad photography day. But's partly the trap of photography, the trap being that it's representing truth in a way that it may or may not be. The real truth of a photograph or any other visual arts image is the thing itself, and then from that how subject and content conjoin to make a truth beyond the physical manifestation. The thing itself is primary, though for all viewers except the maker, with the other stuff following.

Photography's verisimilitude throws these things into confusion and puts the latter above in front of the former, with an added helping mixing/confusing the subject matter with its representation ( a subtle problem the other visual arts share a bit). And as you correctly pointed out, photographers themselves created a bunch of shared values about the medium, and it was a long time (in the modern sense) before critics and curators and art historians took the medium seriously enough to add a bit of balance to that and tease apart photography's underlying meanings as a medium of representation and expression.

For a long time it was just the practitioners of photography alone, and in some ways they straightjacketed it, I think especially in the U.S. (the Pictorialists a notable exception). It's very interesting to contrast U.S. photography with European (and now emerging historical Asian) photography, and to note the relationship of first the Impressionists, then notably the Dada-ists and the Surrealists.

[Jim Arthur]

Your thoughts on truth in photography brought to mind quotes by Mark Twain and John Steinbeck. Both men were concerned with the way a photo is perceived. Twain's quote is rather harsh and too long to post here but it eventually says, "...the sun never looks through the photographic instrument that it does not print a lie...". Steinbeck's quote is more succinct, "As for the picture, I hate cameras. They are much more sure than I am about everything." This matter of truth in photography is a never ending debate. Don't Sweat it.

Fragmentation: Those billion snapshots a day are made by ordinary people. An ordinary person can make a great picture on occasion but its more a matter of chance. Just because those snapshots are now online instead of under a bed does not mean that YOU need to look at them. Let the digital collective body do the edit.

Somebody somewhere once said that we maintain freedom not to indulge error but to discover truth and I think our new digital freedoms are doing that in some ways. Its already shown me documented sightings of ocelots and jaguars roaming the wilds of my state along with eye witness accounts of authorities doing wrong. Our candy coated social media and its constant salvo of images has to subside at some point (I hope) and when it does, the new culture will become clearer. In the meantime, as long as photographers can still pour themselves into their work and elicit an emotional response from their viewers, we'll be OK. We just need to be patient.

[Jez Cunningham]

Join a local photography club - the enthusiasm is there, showing off your work, the competitions, with rules against manipulation, … and you can even make friends, learn and teach.

[BG]

"I'm seeing less photography now ." That is why I am taking fewer pictures now, and all of them are on film. With digital, it was too easy to take 10s or 100s of snaps. Then, they stayed on the media card; I often had little enthusiasm in downloading them, sorting, renaming, and wondering what to do with them. With film, I take a limited number. The entire process is much more work, but I'm glad to see the results. The volume does not overwhelm me.

[DMac]

You summed up my thoughts precisely. Very sad, but nothing has a right to stay the same forever.

[David Comdico]

“There are ten thousand little subcultures online...” this is happening across the culture and is hardly a problem limited to photography. Look at the state of publishing. Has there been a major literary movement in the past 20 years or so? Or in cinema? Painting? At least in photography (and digital filmmaking) there is enthusiasm.

Maybe you should incorporate some film into your shooting schedule. I have and at the very least it is a reminder of how bad your habits can become with digital.

[Pak Ming Wan]

Working in the AI industry for one of the large companies producing these models, I can relate to this post. I had a rather passionate discussion about the impact of AI on photography and movie production with someone at a major conference recently. I won't hide the fact that I really don't really like AI generated content.

But then he asked - "What if you couldn't tell the difference?"

It's a good question. I think I replied someone along the lines of: it isn't that I care that I can tell the difference, I'd rather see something generated by a human expert. I prefer hearing music live. I want art to be crafted not just created or spat out by some random machine.

With reflection though, I thought my argument was rather weak. Not everyone cares about craft anymore. Even my own argument was a little facetious because I use AI to accelerate the work of human experts (but in different areas, like text). I mean I know where AI could be used, the limits of it, and where it couldn't be, but not everyone knows that. So, I was somewhat defeated.

I used to take my camera everywhere with me, but now, it only comes with me on holidays. I should take it out more often. My last few black and white photos I took from my mono digital camera weren't my best ever, but they did have that little bit of magic that they represented reality without being real.

I still hold hope for photography because I think that the reason why people might use a smartphone film or take photos of a concert or a place to prove they were there still proves that magic exists.

Pak