Hello.

In 2025, we are very concerned about the incursion of AI into photography - this site expressly forbids AI images. On t'other hand, many of us are using AI editing tools - for example to destroy "Noise" in our photographs, else to remove blemishes. When photography began, artistic painters thought the end for their art had arrived - because photography could "do literal" far-better than even the most photo-realistic painter. Flying through time, a couple of decades ago  photographers were worried about "digital artists" who either drew / painted from scratch digitally, else took photographs way-beyond anything that had ever been possible in photography - the very sort of images which many of us now produce.

"Cut!" to being a surgeon. It really matters that doctors distinguish liver from kidneys; blood from mere plasma: our lives depend on their accuracy and catagorisation. Back to art: Does it really matter how we arrive at a finished image? Paint them, draw them, drip them, photograph them, enhance photographs, AI-design them?

Clearly, if one's livelihood lies in (say) stock photography or product photography, AI could send one into unemployment very quickly, I am sorry to say. And, of course in the future cheap household stores may-well sell AI-generated art, in preference to paying a painter or photographer. And disputes will occur - AI images will be passed as genuine paintings or photographs and (worse still) geneuine artists / photographers will have their work falsly said to be "AI-Generated." Another objection to AI is that "Anyone can do AI art." Well, yes but these days, anyone can take a photograph with that camera they always have with them.

But what of the members of 1X (or similar) in ten, twenty,  fifty years' time? Will they care about the 2D art divisions? (there is a whole parallel discussion to be had about 3D art). As photography did not kill artistic painting - though it did take a chunk of its market - it seems to me that people will still want to photograph the world in future, rather than everyone typing scenarios, from their minds, into the keyboard - or building upon existing images. And images may well contain elements of a variety of media - who knows?

So, like some doomed explorers in America's mid-west, a couple of hundred years ago, do we need to draw the waggon-train around us in a futile attempt to fend-off the inevitable attackers? Or should we simply seize the new opporunities? Do whatever it takes to produce the images we wish to produce and do not become hung-up on the specific methodology.

Put another way, do divisions between artistic methodologies really matter? Or is what actually matters the results of artistic endeavour?

" Anyone can take a photograph " yes you are right but as photographers we decide what to take and when the light it right. We frame and pick the composition and so on. AI images are computer generated a product of a  few words that the computer selects parts of images of other photographers slapped together with no copyright. AI images have a place - Straight Photography has a place just not in the same ball park.

Hello, again, Daniel - thanks for your reply. Axiomatically, we are in agreement - but the problem is we are both photographers, as opposed to independent consumers. You and I might think we are playing different elite cricket - perhaps even that AI "just isn't cricket". However, punters may simply want to watch a any game of cricket - or even any ball-game - anywhere, any type. We can proclaim our unique and careful - artistic - approach and, indeed, some punters might actually divert to watch us - but many may not. They may even settle for watching an ad hoc game of French Cricket on the beach, played between two family groups as it is easier, quicker, cheaper - even more fun - to watch, than our carefully-structured Test Match between the best international sides, at the best ground over five days. Beauty, taste and the finances are in the eyes of the beholders, not the players - the latter can simply do their best. But these days not mayny Cyanotypes nor Daguerreotypes are produced nor sold, however much the artists of such wish they were. I have no crystal ball which to interrogate but I doubt the future will fit with the vision we hope it would - it seldom does. Cheers.

To those worried about their photography career, this may be of interest...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI55d4vC_WY&ab_channel=TinHouseStudio

Some broader thoughts about  photography, by Zoe Leonard, American photographer, born 1961.

"What is photography ? Is it a print, an object or is it a jpg on your screen? Does it only exist if you print it out ? Does it only count if it’s a big file, a TIFF ? Or is it a snapshot on your phone or a slide projection, or is it the image you see in your mind before you click the shutter ? Is it that great picture you missed, the time you ran out of film or the camera jammed or you didn’t even have your camera with you ? In short, is photography an object or an image, or is it a way of seeing?"

Cheers, Hans-Martin

Hello, Hans. Thanks for your post - and some interesting thoughts. These seem a tad like that old question: "Does a falling tree make a noise if no one is there to hear it?" Clearly, neither that nor the questions posed by Zoe Leonard (Damn! She is younger than I, so I can be grumpy about her age!) are definitivly answerable because they depend on our definitions - and we (humans) are unlikely to agree on those. The scientists would say a falling tree generates a sound regardles - and, anyway, many non-human creatures may be present to hear it. But if all the rest of us care about is the reaction of other humans then, no a falling tree effectivly makes no sound. And, returning from my metaphore, what if our concept incolves a photograph overlaid with old newspaper and paint? - Perhaps with an AI image atop all? Mixed media, yes but what part photography?

Good thoughts, cheers.

Worth a listen:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00290zs

Thanks, Peter. I have queued it and shall listen later today, I hope.

No, it doesn't matter how we create an image.

But since 1X is a photography website, no paintings, drawings, or text-generated images are allowed. It's that simple.

Good light, Hans-Martin

Hello Hans-Martin, thank you for your post.

I  don't think anything in this world is "that simple" - that sounds to adopt an unintellectual approach which I hope we don't "aspire" to. Besides which, I dom't think I conveyed my point to you, sadly. My point was not that 1X.Com should suddenly decide to display paintings, drawings nor text-generated images. My apologies if you took that meaning.

Two points:

(i) Esteemed as it might be, 1X.Com is but a tiny part of human-kind's global 2D artistic environment. And I was most-certainly not talking of 1X.Com specifically; I was offering a small conribution to the discussion concerning the future of 2D Visual arts.

(ii) I was actually looking at the future of what we understand to be photography - let us say an image based directly on light-collection (I am very open to alternative definitions - I simply use that as a working basis for my hypothesis). From that I make two points: (a) I suggest it is really only art-curators and photographers who care about the origins of images. Curators because they have galleries / businesses to run and photographers because it is, put simply, what we do. (b) Photography, as painting before it, finds itself in a highly-competitive market - for sales but also for attention and respect. If the general public do not now - or, at least, will not in the future - care what the source of their image is and any image might be mixed, from different original sources (drawing / painting / text / photography) the various media will mix-and-match and the public's perceptions will rest solely on the finished outcome. Already, it is hard to tell between some drawings and paintings; between some paintings and photography - and, increasingly, between some AI and photography. I don't know about others but like King Cnut, I do not think I can repel the tide.

I hope that clears up the confusion I left? Again, sorry for being unclear.

Cheerio.