Why would anyone pay for fstoppers when AI can generate the same but better. . . . . . . . . Exactly. That's how we felt the entire video. These photos look like shit
I just love picking up a camera to take photos. I can do the same with my phone, but I prefer the feeling of a camera, I love how I can choose a lens, pick my subject, focus here and there with a big camera at my disposal. It's a feeling you cannot capture with a phone. That's why people still buy film cameras and film... Leica ... it's all about the feeling. AI images really have no meaning because they have no artist or story behind them. My friend who's partner died and he painted his rebirth, that kind of story you cannot capture in an AI illustration, but the meaning of a real photo or real painting, well, it's the story, the humanity, the meaning behind it. I see AI images the same as fractals, they are an additional to our collective knowledge, not a replacement of anything. This is why we still have people who build bronze sculptures when you have a plastic 3D printer. :)
As an professional Photoshop editor, and a begginer photographer, I feel the same. A couple of years back, removing something like a trashcan in the back of an photo was kinda a big deal - you HAD to hire someone with Photoshop knowledge, because there was really no other way to do it. Same goes for anything else, like restoring old family photos, replacing the sky or changing the color of something. Same goes for photography, whether it be macro or portraits, wide land masses have access to it, unlike before. Everyone can now take photos and edit them. Hell, even movies are being made using phones nowadays. All this being said, I didn't mind it until now. Yes it stripped me of my job, and I now have to chase another career, but ultimately it makes billions of others happier and more creative, and you can't argue with that. I mean, I'd be happy if my car would never break, but mechanics would probably have to find a new job. But the AI thing is annoying me, because it's not a human construct. It's literally computer generated, with 0 emotion. It's going to make art meaningless. When someone takes a nice photo using his phone, I'm still happy to see it and count it as art. But the AI makes me feel sad somehow, we have come to the point where we're too lazy, or we don't have enough money, or time to create art. And before you know it, we're going to have AI lovers, because why not. Also, the AI thing is taking away jobs from models, photographers, editors, makeup and prop artists. We don't have welding robots in factories because workers have families to feed but no one gives a damn about all the freelance people in this industry.
Lot's of folks with a vested interest in keeping professional photography alive commenting here. Yes, certain types of event photography, etc will still need real photographers in real time instead of AI. But, that's not the issue. Most professional photographers need quantity as much as quality to continue to put food on the table. What first digital, then more and more automated editing software, and now AI has been doing over the last 20 years is nibbling at the edges of the bread and butter income of professional photographers. It's great to get the Nike or Apple ad to shoot. Potential for big dollars. But it's the dollars from routine stuff, portraits, food photography, etc., the kind of stuff that automation and AI can do for free, that disappears from the pro's income as technology becomes more and more sophisticated. Sure, when digital and then cell phones cameras came along, the pros could still produce much better quality images, but a $500 digital p&s or cell phone could produce images that were "good enough" for most people, and they were essentially free, so the family portrait and event business thinned out. It's this kind of day to day income that technology is destroying for professionals. Those $4000 cameras and $3,000 dollar lenses need to work all the time to pay the bills. It is not the full frontal attack on professional photography that is going to kill it. It's technologies nibbling around the edges of the pro's income stream that will kill it. And these technologies are sufficiently advanced to do just that. At 71, I've made my living with a camera my entire career. Incredibly rewarding. But, if I was starting out now, I'd choose another way to feed the family and my creativity.
Lucid response. The on-set phenomenon is important to a big client, and they pay for it, but all the smaller jobs that keep us fed are going to disappear.
It's the photographer, not the camera.... That hasn't changed. I love the fact that everyone has access to professional cameras in their pockets. It gives enthusiasts affordable tools to showcase their talent (which encourages professional photographers to raise the bar) and it also gives millions of terrible photographers the tools in their hands to make our work look even better.... So it's a win win with the right mindset.
The same is true of DJing. I am a professional photographer and DJ. Access to professional kit just leads to more and more bad practitioners, but good practitioners will still stand out and be most desired. Nobody wants to pay to see Colin from the pub dj Ibiza Rocks on his £6 iPhone app. Same way nobody want Aunty Mary to photograph their multi million dollar commercial campaign on her iPhone12 Pro. Paint had been available to the public for centuries but people still pay big money to go to a Picasso exhibition. This whole video is cynical clickbait for a channel running out of ideas. NB any photographer arguing that the fake iPhone portrait mode depth of field even remotely resembles the effect of a wide aperture lens should sit in the corner and think about their life.
@@chrisbeschi4818 yea that’s what I was thinking with the clickbait. This channel really has gone downhill in terms of actual photography. It’s mostly gear review or this kind of stuff. Show us more photo shoots!
Only now a kid that’s 8 years old can generate more beautiful and professional photo’s than you if they use A.I. and you only still use your camera and photoshop. So there is actually a lot that’s changing..
@@IvoKlerk Maybe...but who in their right mind would hire an 8 year old in a professional job. Apple is not going to hire an 8 year old lol. People are fixated on the results but don't realize that the result is half the equation of a successful artist. There are plenty of successful people who's work are not world class. Take Peter Lik for example. The guy has editing errors in his photo and yet he sold a photo for millions.
I just shot an African wedding last week and the guests were rushing to get in front of me to take their own photos. There were cell phones all over capturing what I was paid to get. I found myself on a couple of occasions photographing the other “photographers” because it’s hilarious to see seven camera phones shooting the same scene you’re trying to capture.
I know exactly how you feel tbh….I’m starting to come to the conclusion that outside of the mini portrait sessions on the side of the weddings, the actual bride and groom only hire a photographer as a flex especially for the reception
Professionally speaking - keep it to concept. Your personal eye will win clients if you demonstrate you have something that no one else has. Even if AI business “takes over” work it into your workflow. Create new stories that will carry the same gravity - whether it be on a film camera, iPhone, an app, an entry level camera, or a Phase One. It’s about the stories we tell, not the devices we do it with.
I don’t think 95% of ‘photographers’ can compare to the ‘creativeness’ of those A.I.’s though. You wouldn’t believe the stuff I can make with Midjourney (-Test/-Beta version) now. And I also think clients wouldn’t value the input from photographers as much as you think. If they can look at photo’s of others and make a moodboard and the A.I. turns their images in that style, then most clients will be happy.. The whole way we look at images is starting to change
@@IvoKlerk I agree ... until they try it I dont think people can comprehend. The first day i signed up I spend 15 hours generating images (no sleep) and showed it to about 20 other people. Quite simply it is game changing and within a year or so it wont even be a competition, the AI is planly better, faster and cheaper.
Exactly. And AI will never be able to give the clients candid shots. Like for example in a wedding, things that happen in a fraction of second and us as photographers are there to capture, there is no way AI softwares can replicate that.
This literally has me in tears. I finally feel like I have found something I’m truly special at with photography. I fed one of my pictures that I was really proud of to DALL•E and in 10 seconds it spat out something that I liked more than my own picture. It’s truly terrifying and crushing as someone that has been actually shooting since only 2019. I feel like I’m just getting started, the best was supposed to be ahead of me, yet already I’m obsolete. Just makes my talent feel like a waste. Horrifying.
2019 is still very fresh. You have time to get better. Software will make our lives easier every year, but that doesn’t make the people that use it any better.
@@mr.croissant7960 the software I understand and appreciate, it’s the fact that in 10 seconds an AI can fabricate a better cleaner image than me with an A7R III with G-Master glass and hours to edit. That’s what scares me.
@@ActuallyDKM A photographer with 30yrs under their belt will be better than you. No offense, but there will always be someone or something better then you. If you let that hold you back, then you’ve already lost.
Technology has a way of eliminating jobs. The common argument is that while jobs might go away, new jobs always spring up in unforeseen ways. I imagine photography as a profession won't be completely dead in the next few decades, but opportunities will be significantly diminished.
For me, one of the biggest things I love about photography, or filmmaking for that matter, is the idea that you are capturing moments. Something real, that actually happened, or that you put the time, effort and craft into staging, and then you captured it. To me, that skill and ephemeral nature of the art form is where a lot of the value comes from. That said, the people that have paid me over the years might disagree and be thrilled with having computers make manufactured imagery for free or cheap. Like most things of this nature, it will likely cause some disruption, and then we'll shift and settle into a different evolution of what it means to work and create in this industry. Is this the END!? I kind of doubt it...but it will definitely have an impact of some kind to be sure.
I've made a very good living for nearly 40 as a portrait, wedding and school photographer. Survived the change over to digital from medium format and continued to make good money for several more years, but as cameras got less expensive and cell phone cameras got better the industry has declined as a whole. I'm glad that earlier this year I decided to retire and now just shoot for the pleasure of it.
And I am just at the start, one year before leaving the art academy. Yes, I am scared. But whatever... climate change will kill us all in a few years, so I will never have to spend so much time as a homeless, living beneath a bridge. Maybe I should try the shortcut called "bullet in the head". Heared its very effective for young, healthy people to quit the agony before it really starts. 😂😅
Well, in my observation most professional photographers take pictures of events such as weddings, engagements, newborns, graduations, family sessions. Obviously computer generated people don’t affect those at all.
Also.... if a photographer thinks their main product is a digital file with pixels, they are in the wrong business (notice I said business not hobby). I surveyed my clients recently for my family portraiture, one of the questions was what they loved most about my service, not one said beautiful photos, not one. The most common answer was around how they felt during the shoot- they felt relaxed, they felt I was in control, they didn't have to worry about the kids, they loved the experience etc. Folks, if you are doing this so someone pays you, you had better have more than fine images as your main selling point. BTW, 85-90% of my clients are referral or they saw a print of my work in a friends home.
Also.. As a general rule of thumb, AI can't inherently make something from nothing, all it is doing is compiling images until they look just about right, it's not making an image from the absense of an image, it's not creating art as it has no way to envision what it wants to create, it just fulfils specific parameters. The idea that AI will make humans redundant even in tech is a stupid one. As a software developer myself who works closely with an AI framework to do my work, it still requires a reference point and a starting point and an end point.
@@ocubex Agreed! I have been dabbling in sports for a while and finally did 2 prom shoots earlier this year under a newly created side business. The first shoot was of some girls who met me during softball season. I love interacting with the high school athletes. The second prom was someone who saw the pictures the first group shared. Both groups said they had a blast with me interacting with them and that it was so much fun. They both volunteered that based on the fun experience, they would definitely be repeat customers. I am realizing that personality/experience is just as important as product at keeping business going.
I honestly think this will likely hit those who make income from stock photography the most. Anything generic and without a "face" or specific meaning behind it is likely going to be replaced by AI generators in my opinion. As for the rest of the industry, quite a few genres of photography will still remain viable, as people will be looking to have something done that is meaningful to them personally (like weddings, events, christenings etc - you can't replicate these events and memories with AI), or where a client will want to showcase their real world work to others (property / interior design / architecture photography etc) and if recent rise in popularity of film cameras is anything to go by, it would seem people still care about authenticity and effort put into their work.
I would never be ok w AI imagery being used for my business. If a stock photo is AI generated it has no meaning and therefore no quality imo. No value there. Its not real. A moment was not captured. So it defeats the purpose of art imo. Ppl like art bc of what it represents and what went into it. Even paintings I think are absolutely ugly go for high dollars bc someone put the time and effort into that image. It becomes a 1/1. Not replaceable.
Your vlog - and I choose my words carefully - is right on the money. The professional photography market is dying and you speak with the concerns of a professional photographer. Where you spoke too loosely is when you said "photography is going to lose its value". It may well lose its *commercial* value, but photography in so much more than just another form of commerce. It is so much more than a way to earn money. It is, or can be, art. And no amount of software or technology can turn an image - however beautiful it may appear - into art, because art is a communicative act between one person and others. It connects people. Consider poetry. Which poem has more value to you: something written with love by your child to you on your birthday, complete with odd rhymes and poor scansion, or something that mimics the crystalline structure of a Shakespearean sonnet that is generated by a computer program with the click of a button? The latter might even sell for more, but the former has value far greater to you, I am sure. Because it is an expression of love. Photography is the little different. I create images not to make money, but to share myself with others.
Good points... I think the value of photography as it is right now will still be there and will still continue to remain, in part and as long as consumers know whether the image in question came from a real person/people or from an AI... certainly the landscape will change, so that will be scary and interesting to see.
Shallow depth of field was/is not what separated pros from amateurs! Lighting is the difference. When a smart phone can give you good lighting then there will be a problem. Or when nobody understands good lighting anymore then we have a problem. We may actually be there as most "professional" photographers don't know good lighting.
It's been known for a long time that smartphones under the right lighting can produce really good professional results. Thing is, once you have the skillset to understand and use light to create professional images... you're probably a photographer and using a proper camera as your primary creation tool.
Well also what separates cameras from cell phone cameras is telephoto reach as well as aperture changing. You can't shoot on a cell phone stopped down to like f/11 or so to get sunstars. You can't shoot a bird in flight that is over 100m away from you. You can't shoot fast moving sports from far away.
@@toddysurcharge771 I have an S22 Ultra and it has a 10x tele. I can definitely get birds in flight. I have a great clip of a pelican skimming a lake at sunset and it's not that far behind what my camera could do. Of course, it's got nothing on my proper super tele lens in many situations (the low light is absolute shite on it) but for a number of things it definitely cuts the mustard at least for social content. Surprisingly good.
Photography won't die. We just have more tools for different uses. You can't replace photos for reviews, or race events and such, cus the point there is to take photo of what actually happen, or pics of damage, wear, take pictures of someone driving a car or riding a bike. You can't fake a real life moment, a real event, world championchip win, a race, that bicycle part, or what ever reviewed. I do a lot of review, product photography with my phone but I am not a fan of the distortions, its very noticible of an round subject is in the corner rof the shot, or straight lines in whole picture. Most if not all Smartphones have wave distortion. It's horrible. But not as noticible with nature shots, like when I take pics in the forest of some trails, or flowers or what ever. Just that alone screams get a proper camera to me. There is and there will be a need for photography, photographers, but I won't hire a pro photographer now, as I do reviews of stuff I use and take pictures and document stuff for my reviews as they happen. For tha tmy smartphone does the job, but sure would like to have no distortion, and more detailed pictures. I also need Nd filter, I've not gotten those for my phone yet but if I get a camera I defenitly will. And now as market back to normal in Norway I can get any camera I want. Not sure which yet, but it looks like new camera snighy come soon, but I don't know for sure. But I am in a paralysis of analysis. I find cameras to be harder to decide on than bike parts
@@markshirley01 Sorry I forgot to add pro, but you get my drift. but same goes for both. I see Air just as another tool in the toolbox, not and replacement for the toolbox with the tools.
It may actually be the case that "Photography" becomes the art form. Kind of like the way you may think that a camera would end landscape/portrait painting, but it didn't, it put a different value on the price of paintings. The kindle was meant to rid the world of books, but it didn't. People still prefer to read from books over digital copies. So what I think will happen is, the digital "fake" age will come and it will enhance the value of real photography. It will do the opposite of what you think because people wont be bothered to go out and learn the "art" of photography.
I tend to agree. Photography will go through an AI phase where pretty much anything is possible. However it will succedd in de-valueing the importance of each image. Greater respect and value will then be applied to 'Real' images. Digital protography was similar in impact - meaning that we now take thousands of images, but each one has very little value. I only have 300 images of my childhood, making each one incredibly important to me. The photographers that continue to create a meaningful emotional connection image will still make money, however I can't help but feel sad that most people are so de-sensatised to images these days it's getting tougher to link an emotional attachment to them. I have so many friends that take thousands of images of their children but cannot find/recall a single image to show me when telling a story. It's lost in the void of social media.
I am guessing that any type of art is dying thanks to AI. From music to photography, no one will be spared. But there will always be people who want to do it themselves, who like the learning process, the final results generated by themselves. I personally love listening music and going to see concert. There's no way I am going to see a computer on stage. As a photographer, I like to learn and teach any kind of techniques. Photography does not only help to create photographs, it is also a way to meditate, go out, realizé yourself. Since I believe more and more ppl will have psychological issues, art will help them getting out of it. Photography will be one way. So I would say yes and no to your topic 😉. PS: that being said, I am still sh** scared!
Well said. It is scary to hear so many being so complaint with whatever they are being told to the point of stopping your self from creating which like you have mentioned will have a giant impact on people's mental health as The Arts are a form of meditation therefore we heal thru art/creation.
Very well said , conducting workshop, tours or photowalk needs really knowledge and passion. And this will never dye. Following the job cut in IT sector and ongoing war with Russia. I don't think AI will take over human mind.
I think the doomed argument over-estimates ordinary people's artistic abilities when it comes to compositions, lighting etc. Maybe they have the tools to do it themselves, but they don't understand the effect those tools have. Also with wedding photography, a photographer will still be hired at least to get coverage of everything. There needs to be a designated person there who'se only job is to think of coverage. Most of the clips shown here with people using phones - such as the water on the ground trick - I bet you that was done by a budding professional + a phone. Ordinary people don't know how to do stuff like that. It's all boring shoulder-high POV compositions with non professionals. It takes time, effort and research to get those interesting angles which most people don't bother with. Sure, the industry might shrink - where the low-level low value photographers will be made redundant and the creative ones are kept. The people who don't see value in professional photography are fools.
There are so many nuances to different types of photography. The movie industry has not died, people go to theaters to see plays, and they still go and see display art and museums. Technology did not eliminate art forms. The stories will always be out there. We just have to use the tools to tell them. Photography will not die, nor can it be totally replaced by computational photos. Use the new tech as a tool. To be honest, I now use a combination of cameras to do the work. It has been that way for over a decade. Change, adapt, and remember, the only time reflected light you catch of any subject will be there once. It will never be the same again. Tell that story with your images! Do not fear change. Use it!
The only reason Movie theaters still exist is because they made a deal for first rights to premier in exchange for profits to streaming services. Since the pandemic Streaming services have hosted movies the same day as theaters. Now what is happening? $3 Movie tickets because they can't survive anymore and streaming companies don't care for the deals anymore
Interesting you bring up the movie industry. While I don't think AI will completely destroy the video or photography markets, it is going to take a huge chunk of income streams for people in those jobs, and totally eliminate some aspects of them. Look on youtube for Unreal Engine 5 short films. Its not there yet but its is awfully close. In the not so distant future you will be able to prompt an AI with a few shows you like and it will create an entirely new tv series or movie that in that genre. A company will be able to prompt an AI for unlimitiless realistic images of people to use in ads. I think AI will kill stock photography/video, CGI and animated movies/shows and more. I think artists will have to concentrate on capturing live events which the demand for will drop due to the easy access to incredibly capable cameras. AI is on the verge of displacing people in many fields. Artists, Lawyers, Doctors, Writers, Researchers, Transportation, Webdev/Programming and yes Photography. It won't replace all the people in those fields but its going to take a huge chunk of the low hanging fruit.
Watching this reminds of what us in the music community have been going through for a few years with the perceived value of music plummeting to $10 a month. I would say it just means we have had to more than just musicians and craft people, we have had to learn different skills of communicating with an audience, whether content and events. Community for me, is the most important word for modern artists and we have to intentionally build in strong communities. Also tech has always lead the curve of music culture it's literally started genres, like house, techno etc. Whatever happens, participation is how determine it for ourselves. Happy creating in a brave new world!
They're paying for the professionals experience, it's up to us to own the moment and make your clients feel like they're paying for someone who knows their shit. The number one compliment I get is not the work i turn in, but how I make them FEEL when I work with them. I'm not worried at all.
I think that definitely makes it still something to look forward to since people, in theory, are still gonna want genuine human connection or an experience
Exactly...it's the EXPERIENCE that counts. Think of yourself as a vintage photo booth. Technically you still have the equipment that most don't have. Remember when Polaroid cameras just vanished and made their way back on the scene a few years back? It may not be as popular BUT there's still a market that people are will to pay for. Find different ways to incorporate AI and make your images even more desirable. Constantly reinvent yourself
I worked as a photographer for Cashman Photo in Las Vegas, mainly for the Beatles LOVE show at the Mirage. My job was to convince strangers to embarrass themselves in front of a bunch of other strangers in the lobby or showroom of a Vegas Strip show, and I just laughed with everybody and had a great time. I became one of the top photographers there just by having fun with people, all of whom had cell phones in their pockets.
Thank you for NOT ignoring this like so many on RUclips. Photography will primarily shift to being for live events and use cases where truthful accuracy is needed
As a professional you need to move on as well and adapt and find your own niche and value. Stand out, do things differently and most importantly understand the needs of your customers. Don’t stand still, adapt and improvise, learn something new every day.
@@jonneymendoza that's always an option. But no matter what other game you choose, you will find similar challenges of change and need to adapt as well.
@@pzellerphoto Agreed. Technology is making great leaps and bounds that are making life "easier" for us all. In the process, it is blurring the lines between pro and amatuer. How do we continue to market ourselves as the "pro" of the new trends? That is how we survive.
@@mrphoto yea just change career. Gave up on photography because of the issues around it and how tech just made it none profitable to pay the bills. Am now into IT
What worries me greatly is something I don't see people talk about often. It's the part where we won't be able to know if the picture is real or if it was generated. I'm sure for many people it won't matter, a cool picture is just a cool picture to them. But for me, it does matter a lot. When I see amazing landscape pictures, I wonder damn what a view is, and I imagine what it would be like to stand there and experience the beauty of the area myself. And if that landscape picture is generated by AI? Well it just loses all meaning for me I remember a few years ago I found a goofy picture of a cat (forgot what it was exactly, but it was a cat doing something unexpected yet funny) the picture seemed real to me (I'm an illustrator and photo editor so I usually can tell if something is edited). Because I thought the picture was real it brought so much dumb joy. Later I backtracked, found the original uploader, and realized the pic indeed was photoshopped so well I couldn't tell. And it just lost all meaning to me, no more dumb joy out of the picture because it simply wasn't real. Some things only have meaning if they are real. When I see portrait photography of people I wonder what kind of life they lived, and what's behind those eyes. Even if the pictures are edited they are still real, the person in the picture still lived a life. And a portrait picture is AI generated, besides being a cool-looking picture, what is the meaning of it?
The biggest market software like DALL-E 2 will disrupt is the stock photo industry. No more crossing your fingers hoping one of your stock photo subscription websites will have a photo of "an elderly woman with a baseball cap holding a purple alligator." You simply wait for your prompt to generate an endless series of images to choose from.
Well photography didn't kill painting, so I doubt AI will kill both painting and photography, after all AI generated images based on your input, and to create anything of use you already need pretty clear image in your head, and need to make many iterations with AI to enhance output. All of AI work is also based on pretty popular stuff on the internet, so it often gives similar vibe when it comes to composition lighting etc. I plan to use AI in a pro work to create concepts for photoshoots, and then expand on them, and improve my craft. Don't let AI kill you, use AI so it doesn't overtake you XD
I don’t think you are looking far enough down the line, in 10-20 years you could have an image generator that makes it so that you can get the same result that you might get in a matter of seconds. It’s based on stuff on the internet now but the technology is in it’s infancy, it will get more sophisticated fairly quickly and will make it so you could make photorealistic images without having to set up real lights, get real people, use an expensive camera, etc.
@@FedThePoopy Also, at the dawn of photography, there was an initial high cost investment for equipment and one had to dedicate the time to hone his craft.
@@FedThePoopy I think it could be even earlier than what you're expecting, but still you're not gonna stop it, with stable diffusion model being able to run on consumer class GPU already, and what's more it's open source, so everyone could literally make own AI based on it. And there are also AI's that write light novels, and write music, and this also isn't gonna be stopped. There is one questionable thing about it all however, and that's high possibility for fraud, and framing someone into something they didn't do with AI generated imagery (though I think it's also possible with PS, here ofc level of entry would be very minimal). Still you're not gonna stop research on AI, and it will be more and more available, so I still think it's best to get to know it best you can, otherwise you don't even know what you're up against. Hope it was somewhat readable xD
Sure, the technology has evolved dramatically in recent years. But having good camera doesn’t make a good photographer. What makes a photographer is their vision, their ability to see, and compose the shot, get the most out of the model etc. This is all learned by the photographer, and can’t simply be relocated by someone who doesn’t have the vision to see the image in the first place. And the vision, the ability to see the image, and being able to produce good work consistently is what makes photography difficult. This is much harder to explain, and it takes years or training. It’s not the gear or the technical stuff.
The excitement with which we zoom towards these new and potentially life altering technologies is Ludacris to me. That people are excited about tech that will not just end careers but also have the power put people in situations they were never in so easily and quickly is crazy to me. I'm worried that the bar for creativity will be as basic as knowing how to string words together
I teach art a lot at a lot of different institutes, and recently I took up photography seriously. I don't have a massive budget, so I invested in fairly old second hand gear (Nikon gear) - some old classic manual lenses, slightly newer prosumer gear but still old and a few bits and pieces, also a very old film camera from the 1970s (Pentax). Being a painter and draftsman since I was a very young child (drawer? calling a kid a 'draughtsman' doesn't seem right) I admit I had a big head start in learning photography. When I finally did a few presentations in clubs, other serious amatuer/enthusiast photographers said they were blown away, and their very first assumption was that I must have spent tens of thousands of euros on the very latest mirrorless cameras and Z mount lenses. Some of them had spent ten times what I had on their equipment and were frustrated their results weren't as good - and very interestingly, thought that meant there was a flaw in their gear. Friends of mine also have spent huge amounts on smartphones with cutting edge cameras, smugly assuming they could now take photos just as good as any professional, but then looking at my photos, or those of long time professionals vastly more experienced than me, are flummoxed as to why they're not as good. I've tried to explain it's carefully selecting your theme, subject and ESPECIALLY composition, composition, composition, quality and direction of natural light/artificial lighting and shadow, colour, controlling your focus and depth of field, and getting the correct ISO, aperture and shutter-speed. Try to create an atmosphere and tell a story. You can create 'razor sharpness' or 'smooth bokeh' and all the other pretty effects with pretty basic gear just by mastering the fundamental skills. Which, of course, involves hard work. Equipment does not make a good imagemaker: I have a personal theory that when there was that huge spike in DSLR sales, a big chunk of those cameras were used for a week or two and then ended up under beds, in closets and gathering mould and moisture in sheds and garages. Text to image AI makes me quite uneasy - it's amazing technology, and an incredibly powerful tool. In a deeper sense, it can't replace human art making - it has no interiority. But I'm worried it's a genie out of a bottle with - like social media - pretty drastic societal effects coming down the tracks, some we can't predict. I also worry that while it's in many senses inferior to a human artist, it's unbelievably faster, cheaper and can run 24/7 without human care needs. Many vested interests might think that if it produces viable market products, that will be good enough. It's not the tech that bothers me, it's the decisions humans will make with it that bothers me. It's impossible to see yet how it will turn out. There's actually surprising things it cannot do (ask it to make Iron Man and Wonder Woman standing next to each other and be prepared to see some pretty strange stuff) so maybe it will hit an unforeseen wall trying to follow a brief the engineers haven't predicted. After all, it isn't anywhere near human intelligence.
I'm nowhere as good as a photographer. But it's always funny when someone sees a pic I took with the cheapest Canon DSLR camera with a third hand cheapish (nothing in photography is cheap) lense and tell me "Well, you must have a great camera". I'm always like... Nope, the cheapest you can find. It's funny how people equate good photos to expensive gear when they are really not correlated. Also, to your point about people loosing interest in their cameras after a week, I'm pretty sure it's because they hadn't cared to really spend time to find the correct gear they needed to use the camera. Had I stick with the 18-55mm kit lense my camera came with I'd have probably regretted buying a camera in the first place. But buying the third hand lense (a 55-250mm one) brought forward where I felt the most comfortable taking photos (turns out, me loves telephotos 🤭) and now I'm hooked af.
@@skyko How to fight something this big? The art market is alright completely crazy. I think, the big names stay big, but nothing new will rise after the AI-blow. Children born today will see this as normal. Movies scripted and maybe animated by AI soon, the death of art galleries, the death of small cinema, small business filmmaking, the death of photography because why taking the cost and effort if you can the best results in seconds for cheap? The wet dream of every bigboss-bussiness-shareholder. No more copyrights, no more waiting, no more artists. The development is shattering. Why hireing a whole army of concept artists and animation artists, if a dude with prompting-skills is enough? In a few months we will hear the first announcement of a big Hollywood movie, fully made with AI. Made by Disney. I bet, this will happen very soon, if it didn't happen already. We, the artists, the creators, we are an dying breed. We delivered so many ideas, flooded the internet with our work and now we realized, what the data collecting of big companys was all about. They feed their algorithms with our stuff, so they can trash us. And I can't even be angry. Thats just capitalism. Its how our world works these days. At the end, the next generations will never know, what a camera is, or a pencil. They will sit in front of their smartphones and believe, what big company wants them to believe. First they killed our climate. Then our equality. Stole our resources. And now they take everything else with AI, so after the old generations are dead, the world lies in burning pieces. Only for money and a deep lust for hating the young ones, the new ideas, the change. They destroyed everything at the end. The ultimate holocaust. I know, that sounds crazy. But in a few years you will understand it, I am sure.
@@hidicproductions4849 You are an intelligent, passionate and insightful artist. You are most likely correct - UNLESS enough of us just say no. NO! There's not a lot they can/will do if enough of us do not comply. Hopefully the plandemic, scandemic woke more people up. I have confidence in humanity as a whole - even though sometimes it seems as if most people are dumb as bricks.
I found it interesting how things changed from film to the digital era. Back in the film days us photographers we far and few between, certainly here in the UK. There just wasn't many of us around. However, once digital came along that changed. By 2010 digital cams were getting pretty good and this made it easy for the masses to go out and use a camera. So, today we have zillions of people who call themselves profession photographers when in reality there're far from it. The natural light photographer is a being who makes a big noise about being just that, a natural light photographer but of course, all that means is they don't understand lighting. Things will always change, move on but I truly believe professional photography will change and become less of an accessory.
You know how sometimes film photography is a sign of real photography skills and digital photography is the less prestige one, I think the same thing is going to happen with phone and AI photography - Digital photography is going to be associated with "authentic skills", which is a skill that a lot of people prefer over taking a picture with a phone. Also, drone shots can't really be replicated with phones that easily yet, and even if AI images could replicate those images visually, it's the stories behind the images that are more important sometimes.
Some very interesting and valid points. I can only speak for myself here…AI won’t work for professional sports because the whole point is to capture a specific human(s) in a specific location. Even though AI could generate beautiful scenes with specific athletes…it defeats the object of the photo….bearing witness to something incredible. I’m sure some companies will cheap out but they will get backlash. As for my product work, most of the products I shoot (cannabis) are completely unique so I don’t think an AI would work since it won’t be 100% accurate representation. All that being said, I’m not ruling anything out. It’s a good time to think about how as creatives, we can leverage AI where possible but find avenues to continue creating original work. Thanks for the vid!
I think there's going to be a renewed appreciation of the organic and natural instead of the synthetic and artificial, kinda like the difference between a mass produced shoe and a hand made shoe. The easier things get the more they tend to loose their value and interest .
Hence the revival of film and analog cameras. It's why people are attracted to retro anything. It's what drew me in to the Fuji X system. I LOVE the look and feel of many of their cameras that have dials and look like film cameras. I grew up shooting in the days of film and for me the transformation of photography from film to digital has been pretty depressing. Nothing is real anymore. When I first started shooting, photoshop was only used by commercial photographers, fashion and graphic artists. Altering or drastically manipulating photos was taboo and frowned upon. Today, it is necessary because people now expect an altered reality. 70 year old women expect portraits with no wrinkles or blemishes and 20 year old skin. Landscape photography is so overly manipulated the beginning photo and ending edited photos are often completely two different scenes. With film, the accepted tools were brightness, contrast, a little dodging and burning and occasional filter over the lens. Most of today's "professional" photography is gaudy, total fantasy and tasteless- but unfortunately it's what people have become accustomed to- thanks to social media.
Eaxctly! Every one...for some reason is always fascinated with the past and wonders HOW they can recreate the experience DESPITE the new age technology.
It will always be room. I think clients pay for the experience. You can cut your own hair but its nothing like going into the barbershop. You still have to have the eye rather its a camera or phone
I agree that the future of photography is difficult to anticipate. There are many people getting great images from basic gear. Differential is the key.
Right now the biggest drawbacks camera phones have are the lenses, dynamic range, fine detail, color depth, micro contrast and reliable use of external lights (strobes/speed lights). At best you're getting a 10bit DNG, maybe 16bit in higher end phones. Things like moire, banding, and defraction still show up in all these camera's. I think the fact kids are picking up film again shows that variety is still very important to people.
Facts! I've seen many instagram posts showing the difference between a smartphone and a professional camera. Professional ALWAYS looks better. Smartphone only looks good when you don't have the same image from a DSLR to compare to lol.
@@Feniche17 Lighting & Composition. Microfiber cloth, wipe your camera lens. Photograph just clouds. If it looks bad, it's the phone, if it doesn't it's you. These guys did a whole series on smartphone photography. DAY🌄>📷 NIGHT🌃 >📸🔘🕯️🏮🔦💡
Those AI apps can't make the photography industry die, simply because we live in a world with a reality and there will be events in our life and we have to take memories for that (wedding, convention, modeling...) The day AI will take the entire industry, that day we will all be plugged to the matrix or like in Ready Player One. Also, of course the market will shrink because of smartphone but if you want photos that stand out, you have to hire a real photographer
I love your take, and agree with you mostly. But I still think the "value" of photography will continue to go down, not because everyone can do it now, but because people are starting to care less about photos now. You can spend hours on a photo (going to location, setting everything up, editing process) then post it on instagram, and people will look at it for literally 1 and a half seconds and keep scrolling. Or worse yet; you can spend hours on a photo, deliver it to a client for them to post on their instagram, and they get 8 likes. Photo could actually be amazing too.
@@rodbarker6598 the problem is the clients also have access to the internet, and sooner or later they will get to know that AI can do the same (or better) job they paid for, but for free and in less than 10 seconds
Good photos are still the by-product of good lighting, good editing and good composition. I disagree with 75 percent of what you said. Unless you want total fakery, A I. can make pro looking photos sooner than we think, like swapping backgrounds and whatnot
The difference between past transitions, ie, film to digital; and this current transition is that for the first time you're removing the human component. A person is no longer needed to create imagery. The same way robotics change the manufacturing industry. It sucks and I've definitely been thinking about selling out all my gear and just doing video.
@@jasonbodden8816 Well sure. Buts this video isnt about photography as a hobby. Its about photographh as a business and or career. In that regard, there are real changes happening and its looking like photovraphy will be obsolete in the next few decades.
@@JoCoMoreno I can see businesses benefitting from not having to hire models and photographers and saving on those costs but in some other genres of photography I don't see it working out very well. Commercial photography will take a hit but I can't see a lot of portrait photographers having to be that worried about this tech.
I think you can't compare this to era changes. From Paintings to end 19th century photography the effort to create a picture was almost the same. The costs for photographic equipment may have been even higher.
The thing is this only shows examples of images of people. If you shoot for interior designers or architects, I don't see software taking over any time soon.
Being a hobbyist I have seen a change as well. I don't think the aspect of creating art with a digital camera will ever die. It is no different then how we still use oil paints to create an artwork. But I could easily get the same effect on my computer with no mess and no knowledge of how to mix paint. It is just a different form on how to create it. But what is does is get more people creating. And I think that is what happening now. A few years ago I took my son's senior pictures for him. I told him I wasn't a professional and if he doesn't like them we would pay for them to be done. He actually loved them and felt more comfortable. Other family members seen them and asked me to do theirs. I have never done portraits but love to learn on RUclips on a channel like this. I also attended a wedding that they announced that they would not have a professional photographer and they encouraged everyone to send their phone pics. I see a whole group of people that don't care about print. They are looking at it as images on their phones. So yes I think there will be a less of a need for professional photographers - it won't go away but if there is a less of a need there will be fewer people going into the business.
Not on you at all, but I feel bad for the people who are so shortsighted as to believe they don’t need anything printed of momentous occasions in their lives- every digital technology eventually moves on. It always has. It’s part of our job as professionals to help our clients to understand that. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc., eventually disappear. Hard drives & flash drives eventually fail, as do CD’S & DVD’s. Or the technology just becomes obsolete over time and the methods to use those types of media disappears. Don’t believe that? Ask anyone who stored important items on Zip or Jaz discs. Or filmed their wedding on VHS (or beta). The simple truth is that if you don’t have a physical print of that moment then in a generation or two (probably much sooner), that moment will be gone.
@@kevinyounger7854 WOW!!!! Kevin you are also right!!!!! and that is an EXCELLENT selling point for prints and albums. Thanks for sharing your marvelous and accurate thought.😀
Your fear is legitimate because it threatens your well being.I would like to share a little story. When I was a kid ,my nextdoor neighbors kid got a Sega console.He stayed in the house for months, while we played outside. He eventually came out to play.Moral of the story?Human interaction will always be our currency. We have also been fooled that it is the photographer that creates the images.When in reality we co- create with our subjects , even nature. The camera and software can fit in our phones , but the ability to create images that talk and connect emotionally, this part belongs to humans.
I sometimes wonder if this AI tech will push people to go full circle and value analog photography more. Analog could be seen as being more authentic. I've been seeing demos of AI photography for years at trade shows, NVidia showing off their tech, but it never really looks authentic. It looks good, but always not real. Likewise, your selected photos look good but are not authentic. The illusion is easy to break.
@@ReclusiveEagle sure but we have had photo templates. Colour profiles etc which all emulate film for a long time, you can still tell. Again, it’s about authenticity
This will impact the stock photo market IMMENSELY! If a company with a creative director needs images for a project, which in the past may have required stock photography or hiring a photographer...that company can now create whatever image they need- exactly the way they want it.
which means hiring a professional that can do that which would not be cheap and not that different from hiring a photographer or a team to do the job. and 3d artists could do photo-realistic images of people it for a long time but that didn't impact photography at all.
Luckily my main job is that of a therapist (very hard to be killed by AI), but as a side hustle, I also do event photography. I really doubt that event photography will be taken over by AI though, since you are capturing live moments and people interacting with each other, which would be hard to simulate and also, people would want those exact moments to be captured, but who knows…
@@yagutensho4044 I wouldn't be comfortable talking to a machine vs a person. It loses a lot of it's value when it's not a human being you are talking to.
I take many styles of photos but I enjoy weddings more. With weddings it will be a lot of photos. Can a cellphone hold that many images? I think when it comes to product and portraits yeah there is a challenge for us photographers but, what would you say about weddings?
Everyone has a camera. Many don't know how to use it other than a basic snap shot and some can't even do that. Many "pro photographers" that do have an eye for composition. Creativity comes from training, experience and skill. Bring on new technology. The pro will use it as a tool, not an end all solution. I remember when HDR came out and now how heavy handed some of my first images looked.
Yea, i saw this coming with a school photoshoot. The parents used their cellphones while we were taking the shots, and those parents never ordered any photos from us. I thought that there's no way a phone can be as good as my $3,000 camera so it didn't really bother me at the time. I had no idea cell phones can be as good as the professional cameras. I knew then that Professional photographers is on borrowed time. And now, i saw how AI can literally generate any art or any photo with professional quality. This industry is good as dead. But it doesn't stop there. AI will literally kill almost every technical industry that needed humans. It's only a matter of time, and then humans will not be needed at all for anything ......
Nice but a photographer knows how to find a photo in scene. Tech still does not know how to take a photo, just how to process it. You are too focused on the tech and not the skill to find the image. A high end phone costs as much as a camera. Phones are just a tool. You still have to hire the craftsman. Sure IKEA sells furniture so why would anyone pay for a premium sofa or table. The industry is changing, and new photographers can choreograph and videograph. The photos can be processed quicker which leaves more time for more work
Exactly. Just like the saying goes "It's not the tool, it's how you use it". A guy with professional photography gear would destroy a hobbyist that only uses the phone.
@@gasoowannab or a pro with a camera phone. The camera has so little to do with the picture. Just look at the amazing photos taken before any of this technology. The images are haunting because the photographer captured the soul of the scene
Whenever this question comes up I always reference technology developments of the past. Cars replaced horses but the equestrian industry is still worth billions, CD and streaming replaced vinyl but Vinyl is still a major industry and growing, digital watches replaced mechanical chronographs but its not the digital watches selling for big bucks , e readers replaced books but books are still printed and sold in their millions. I could go on... however the key to any transformation is to find the value not the volume. Professional photographers will be valued if they continue to tell stories, make it personal, make it relevant and make it a joyous experience for their customers. For me as an amateur I will continue to take photographs with a camera and develop my skills simply because its hard, that's all the motivation I need.
I think you’re right to a degree. It will weed out the low end and create a gap. But high end will always have a market because some commercial clients will want a crafted image vs some randomness with an AI. To compare it to a product, people said phones and wearables would put an end to traditional watches but the high end watches are sought after because those with means want to differentiate themselves. I appreciate that you mentioned bokeh as the difference maker today, i found it funny that it’s the easiest thing to spot.
Overpriced photography and equipment is going to end. Creative people still will get better results then average person and in commercial industry to win you will need to be authentic. So fundamentally still everything is the same.
I read in a newspaper, at least thirty years ago, that Hollywood was looking forward to the day when they could invent digital movie stars, whom they could own by copyright, who would obviously work for no pay instead of millions, and to whom they could do anything, including horrific murder; after all, they could never really die, being unreal. It has taken longer than they might have expected; the author of the article has probably retired by now, but, obviously, it's coming.
Think it will be hard to replace the Al Pacino's, Jack Nicholson's and Meryl Streep's, a.k.a. real, good actors. But very soon it won't be a problem to replace all the Jessica Biel's, Scarlett Johansson's, Colin Farrell's and Ben Affleck's and the endless number of their lookalike's. We're that close to omit those pale, shallow "actors" completely, and I won't miss a single one of them
While smartphones and AI might be a threat to the profession and people who makes a living from it, none of those will ever replace the feeling of capturing a stunning photo with a real camera in your hand. In my experiences, photos on a smartphone tends to get taken and almost never looked at again - but maybe that's just me who aren't into social media and posting them online in the first place. In terms of AI, I haven't tried MidJourney or Dall-E, but I can safely say I would get no satisfaction from using either of those, cause the outcome is not something I've truly created.
If I go to Home Depot, I can buy paint, brushes, rollers, everything I need to paint my house. Yet there are many businesses that still make a good living painting houses. The cell phone, the 35 mm professional camera, and everything else in between are nothing more than tools. It is the 12-in behind the camera that differentiate a consumer from a prosumer from a professional. Eventually, I do agree that the photography industry as we know it will definitely change. However, I think it will be quite a few years until that happens. I remember watching several RUclipsrs lamenting how luminar AI was going to destroy the photography market. It hasn't happened yet. Maybe there is a program in the future that will do it but not today. I'll keep plugging along and finding my way in the market for as long as I can.
@@DanTuber photography is, for the most part, digital. Painting is a physical act with real materials. However, the business model is the same. A customer can paint themself or hire a pro (painter.) Likewise, a customer can use their own camera or use a pro (photographer.) Different mediums, same process.
@@DanTuber a better analogy would be building your own website from scratch (and doing all the coding) vs using a site like Square Space. Both things still exist.
you are right, this video was made 8 just months ago. check out how exponentially midjourney grew in months. we can barely differentiate Ai from real ones now.
Photography of live events will still be needed. The AI generator (so far) cannot capture a perfectly timed ring shot or moment at a wedding. Even if you were to have an AI generated image it wouldn't be that exact moment that you are creating an image. As far as portraits go will AI be able to do it in the future yeah maybe but a big part of portraits is connecting with and building a rapport with you subjects and then informing your image with that personal connection. That personal connection is not something AI can do...yet.
As an artist from different fields I learned that it is the story that matters. AI can recreate all the techniques used in any art form but it takes a story, emotion, feelings, and overall, life experience to use those techniques the way an artists intended to show to the people. That’s one thing that AI cannot generate that we, a conscious individual can create. In my eyes, I see this as a great potential to help us tell our story that we are trying very hard to tell to other people. It is scary that AI can do the work that took me years to learn but at the same time sets me free from all the technical side on things and just allow me to focus all my energy to make sure the message that I wanted to share to other people is the way I intended to show and the robots would just do all the hard work of crafting my art.
Here's the thing, after following this field for a couple of years. I've been predicting that within 5 years we will see a digital picture frame, that will eventually be flawless color e-ink, that you can talk to to customize your artwork. Hey Picture Frame, generate an image of a Japanese Torii Arch in a Japanese forest with a monkey hanging from it. Change the monkey to a bonobo. Place a path leading to steps that lead up to a shinto shrine underneath. Change the time to dawn. Do a variation of this image. Another variation. Have the light from the sun creating tiny god rays through the trees. Do a variation. Save the last variation to my favourites. Now replace this with photorealistic images of people or anything else. It will essentially be like a 2 dimensional holodeck where you can just talk your way through customizing the images. I don't know if it will even take 5 years. All the building blocks are there... voice recognition, image recognition, image generation, inpainting and variations on image generation, etc. Look how far DALLE came within one year. And I don't think you even mentioned Stable Diffusion? It dropped a week ago into the public domain and the number of tools and integrations is exploding so rapidly I can't even keep up with it. And they have much bigger plans for their open source model (which DALLE and MidJourney lack)
I totally get your point and understand the concern but I think they'll always be a need for professionals. Even as a full-time working professional myself technology like this excites me. It doesn't destroy industries. What technology does do is lower the bar for entry and raise the standards that professionals must strive for. If you are already good at what you do, you don't have to be worried about this as long as you continue to strive to be better.
I think with any profession, it comes down to your reputation and popularity. People put more weight into trust that the job will get done and done fairly well. Even if you don't consistently take the best photos every time, clients feel comfortable knowing you are reliable and do a good enough job.
As a hairdresser, I can see some value remaining for images of my work with hair. Even if I could use AI to generate images of my clients, capturing the actual hair work (for my portfolio, social media, and even hair competitions like NAHA) will hopefully keep photography at least a little bit relevant. I imagine the same thing for chefs who want to shoot their plating, or tattoo artists who want to shoot their work. Already, in the hair industry if your hair photos look too good people cry "this is photo shop! You're not that good at hair" and I'm sure in a few years they'll instead claim "this is AI! You're not that good at hair!"
@@miamitten1123 I think you misunderstand what I mean. If I showed you 50 AI images of haircuts would you let me cut your hair? What if I showed you 500 of them, would you trust in my haircutting skill more then? How many AI images would I need to generate in order to get someone to believe I would be able to give them a good haircut?
In 50 years, a poorly captured, unedited photo will have more value because everything will be so fake. Authenticity is what makes people great. Hopefully that translates over to photography like it has in video. Casey Neistat become an internet sensation for his authenticity. It definitely wasn’t for his cinematic be roll or color grading skills.
Bad thing that by just using few words AI will make a grainy, lo-fi image in seconds. However, i agree that film photography might have another chance if don properly and bring some value + good money as a limited resource media
This is interesting. Modern technology is moving fast, very fast. Don't think this is the end of photography. My parents were good amateur photographers and they have mastered digital photography. Unfortunately, my father is no longer alive and my mother is in the final stage of dementia. This is point, You get a different market. People our age or younger are definitely going to try and exploit the new things. The older generation, I don't think so. They still attach too much value to the traditional method. bride pictures, school pictures, etc etc. Event photography will continue to exist. People still want to see famous people in a picture (with a juicy story). A story of a famous actor with a fake photo does not sell. And as a photographer, it's nice to get his picture,
I don’t think it’s going to die. I think it’s going to move into an era where it’s all about the content you make and who it appeals to. Rather than getting hired for jobs, you’ll get the opportunity to be as creative as you want and that will lead to fans or subscribers to your work. The cameras are just a tool. It’s the story you’re capable of telling that matters. Not everyone has that special ability to tell remarkable stories through content creation. Then it will come full circle and people will hire professionals based on their preference of the way they tell stories, the mood, and the emotion their work evokes.
I'm a commercial shooter and mostly specific workplaces and staff. I'm all good. Creating a specific style connected to the human soul cannot be done with AI or most people. I'm all good.
i've been a professional fashion photographer for over 5 years now, and that is what i've always said. photography as a job will be dead soon. Unless they integrate cameras with smartphones funtionalities there will never be a doubt on the epilogue of the profession... unfortunately. Hopefully i will still be able to flip hamburger when the train stops. xD
@@RichardLaurence except that phone packs 100x the R&D budget of a camera, and it's proprietary. Phones sell 10,000 times camera sales so unless you want to pay $500k for that camera and change it every 2 years, phones will always pack more technology
@@barryobrien1890 to be honest its not entirely that, pics taken by professional Gear are massive and even an average pc will have problem editing a raw file of that dimension, not mentioning the cloud sharing. Phones take a lot of massive shortcuts both in video and in picture, having a "low res" (compared to a current pro camera) file but optimized to the extreme for the file that it is. Have you ever tried to edit a photo taken by your phone on photoshop? I assure you its hellish compared to my Gear (Sony Alpha 7r4) as how it should be considering that a camera only has that functionality. Imho They should be able to find a middle ground of sort.
@@barryobrien1890 it is true that the tech inside Phones are becoming more ridicoulous as time goes by tho... The chips of pro Gear are crazy as well i can guarantee you that. Tho i am not buying a new 5k camera every 2 years haha. I am not on that Level (yet)
@@MadLaVolpe Yes tech is driving everything now. I think people forget the amount of development that it takes to make a phone that sells for $500, but when you make a few hundred million of them it's easy to spread out the cost. A lot of phone tech and miniature subsystems like af motors and gyros are trickling into cameras making them not like your grandpa's brownie. It's all fun, but getting a great photo unfortunately is still a lot of work, practice and long hours. Capturing light is still hard.
Illustration is probably more at risk than photography, but I agree, this time it's different. Things are going to change a lot this decade because of AI.
Well, in a matter of fact, a picture generated by a AI cannot be copyrighted. They where a case few years ago of a photographer that a monkey took his camera and made a pretty selfy of himself. Later on, the photographer published this photo as his own and a guy used it. The photographer sued him and lost the case because the judge decided that animals aren't humans to begin with so they cannot have royalties and that the picture was de facto creative common. It would be the same with a work made by a AI and I don't see major companies daring to play with that and have de facto their design creative common unless they lie about it but would be hard to hide that I presume…
Certain areas of the industry will definitely have to adjust, but f ex events, weddings, birthdays etc, that will still require a professional photographer.
Perhaps photographers just need to adjust their thinking. Instead of being a person behind a camera, maybe they need to focus on being a still image storyteller. I see weddings being the last professional industry to live through simpler because couples need a dedicated person to take the pictures that know how to handle a fast paced day. That’ll likely be the only reason to hire a pro photographer from the creative side of the photo industry. I do see high end fashion photography being dead in the next 5-10 years. Like you said, you’ll be able to just type in what you want with multiple variations of that photo. And I predict the ability to take the average persons face (not Elon musk) and merge them with the ai generated stuff. I’m excited for the next phase. We just need to change the way we see our “art” it was never the camera despite it being called “photography” photons. The capturing of light on to a medium. At the core we are story tellers. Don’t sell yourself short by being the guy/gal behind the camera.
Marketing companies will create the images they need directly, themselves. If all professional photographers would try to join those A.I.Creators, there were way too many, so, little to no payment, think of cheap interns rather than well paid photographers. All those saying "you just have to be good" are simply underestimating the pressure of possibly having a complete ad campaign pretty much for free versus paying for photographer, models, permits, gear, travel, location, post, retouchers, make-up artists. If marketing firm "A" does NOT want to do it, the now cheaper firm "B" will create pressure for all to switch. No models, no photographers AND more exactly to what the marketing guy really wants initially - and pictures close to impossible to create in reality - what makes you think you could still bill anything for taking photographs?
@@RonK who said anything about there even being marketing firms? Lol firms will crumble from a team to, AI planners and generators. Even the ability to “choose the final product” will eventually be automated. Data will soon “advise” us what image is best to use because it can search the infinite “database” and pick which images have the highest impact and most clicks. Seriously everything in our industry will be automated except whatever jobs need humans. The crazy part is MOST jobs don’t need humans. What’s even is a “creator” since we can now have AI “create” for us? Well the ai software devs need our ideas to feed the software in the first place. Eventually Photographers will be hired solely, for their human instinct. So yea, no, photographers won’t be hired for much of anything. That’s why I think the wedding photo industry and event photo business will be the last to stand. Those images are captured exclusively. Meaning they can’t be generated because the event itself can’t be “generated”.
@@gnkstudios6138 I remember a BTS video of some photographer preparing almost two days with several assistants to shoot one image of a famous actress in order to create the poster for her new movie. She of course was available during the final five ten minutes only to take the picture - walk onto the set all dressed up, make-up already finished, capture the image, bye. Guess, that's just business as normal, and the photographer did not mind since he was paid for the two days of work. The story fits in here, because he was working TWO days to re-create the shot as exactly as possible as ordered by the movie company's marketing firm - a very exact, complicate drawing with detailed instructions, what the set had to look like, where the light had to come from, what part was expected to be in whatsoever shadows and way more. Now you tell me why that marketing studio would even refer to a photographer IF they could have entered all those parameters directly to an A.I-creator suite?
@@RonK they wouldn’t. Lol that’s my point. Photography profession will die like any other profession that loses its relevance. Firms won’t exist because a company won’t need a “firm” as the way we know it. A huge building with dozens of employees working for top brands in our area/region. The creative Director will have the ability to oversee everything and essentially do everything. The “photographer” won’t have that title anymore. But there vision will remain relevant. They’ll take out their phone or glasses, (whatever piece of tech is more relevant) and snap a pic of that surrounding and literally every pixel can be modified with real surroundings or ai generated surrounding. So the “photographer will just choose what goes and stays. But yea I totally agree the days of a “pro photographer” being hired and all that jazz will be gone in the next 5-10 years. Weddings will still have a dedicated photo person but it’ll be because they need someone or anyone to do that job. Now will they get paid a living wage? Probably not. Because they’ll just be paid to shoot. Editing will get so easy everyone will literally be able to modify an image to their liking. Photographers will likely get hired through the venue because the couple can edit the images themselves. The order in which all this happens is up in the air but I think we can all agree the profession of photography will die and those who call themselves photographers will either adapt have a new title or quit.
I think when the market hits peak quality ( photo realism with user inputted images of themselves) and peak market utilization, there will be a reverse trend for authenticity that will take place. When you have a market that is completely saturated with high quality work with very little effort, a sense of authenticity is craved and demanded. Look at video content now where people are choosing to shoot on phones because it feels more "real and genuine" vs choosing to go for higher production value via image quality. I also have a feeling people will certify that their images are actually shot and are "real". There will be people that still value tremendously the experience of actually being pampered and catered to by a professional photographer, from hair/makeup to set design, etc. However, that type of photographer is already a rarity as it is.
I think smartphones are cameras that allow you to communicate verbally, visually and typographically. Also we've been able to replicate other photographers work in post production at least for me in 2003-2005. Photoshop was around before then and others used earlier versions to do photo manipulation. The complicated part 🤷🏾♂️ I get but people are lazy 🤣 and the photography industry isn't shrinking. People buy a camera everyday more than they've ever done before. What photographers have done is separate themselves from Smartphones. If you include smartphones, which the primary reason people buy them currently. The camera industry is booming, it just depends on where you stand.
Totally agree - I also think video is taking a hit as well. Short reels - throw away content - is there really any need for pro video setups any more in a lot of cases. Sony themselves have said they expect their cameras to be eclipsed by there phones soon. I think the wedding video and photo industry will hang on in there for a bit tho.
I'm really not sure how I feel about this. I've learnt photography, Photoshop & own professional gear... I've never made a penny. My problem? I'm not a sweet tongue sales marketing person. I see other photographers make a living with it. Photographers who, in my opinion, are not as creative and detail oriented as I am.
There are lots of people who got into photography for the "geek factor" of megapixels, dynamic range, etc. but have no idea of how to compose great images. There are those that got into it to "hide" behind the camera. The camera serves as the buffer between them and the subject. They receive a endorphin hit when the subject then praises their shots. People get into photography for many reasons. The ones who do it for "making money" are usually going to succeed regardless.
@@aussie2uGA I get your point. In fact, I agree. I find it actually sad that people who are willing to pay for a photographer seem to be attracted by... actually, I don't know. YES, some have an excellent positioning and marketing strategy and are good photographers. But, I don't still understand why some photographers who don't pay attention to the quality of their pictures get so many clients. And it's honestly frustrating.
They're just tools, and it's up to creatives to either embrace them or not. yes anyone can take a photo, yes anyone can edit, but no, no one else has your eye for composition, for framing, for story telling, for following a clients brief.
I for one welcome our AI overlords; for the longest time photography was out of reach for your average Joe, times where the average person wanted to get into the hobby, they wouldn't get any guidance from "professionals" it's always been very well gate kept and now we're going to see a flood of new and different art.
Lee - I think you're spot-on. While we will continue to have the creative eye; the professional gear (and the knowledge that's needed to maximize that gear); the compositional creativity; and the skillset in the Adobe (or other post production) ecosystem, the combination of today's smartphone technology, paired with the rapidly growing AI capabilities will change photography, forever. This is different than going from the film age to the digital age. This is different than learning the advantages of Lr and Ps. Early-on, the advantage of smartphone photography was merely convenience - having something on your person that would allow you to capture a moment which would otherwise go uncaptured. But now - it's not just convenient - it's expected. Most of us have powerful cameras - in the form of a smartphone - on us at all times. The fact that you, yourself, have legit - high quality images - printed and hanging on your wall, which were shot with a cellphone is HUGE! You have the best gear. You are one of the smartest, and most talented photographers of our era, yet it's not your high-end camera equipment you lean on for pictures of your family. We have to call it like it is. We have to accept (embrace?) the pivitol change here. For those, like me, who aren't professional photographers, who are hobbyist, I think we'll be fine. We will continue to grow and be amazed by the art of our craft and the photography gear and tools we use. But for someone who does photography for a living, it has to be concerning. The massive decline in camera sales, coupled with the rapid rise in smartphone camera tech and AI advancements will have an immediate impact on most professional photographers. Great video, as always. Cheers!
@@FStoppers I don't know anyone personally, but that's exactly my point, of course that's gonna be a lot of people that gonna go out of business lol. Only the strong ones will make it, just like anything else.
Well I'm a painter and I can tell you any digital art have no value to me nor the people who are truly into art (not as an investment). People buy into the story. There's no story in a digital code. The world is becoming more and more shallow and empty. It's does not mean it's better. It's just more boring. That's what's worrying. Just like Instagram. It used to be king of cool. Now it's just a bore.
@@FStoppers Lots, and they are doing more than just fine, traditional painted commissions don't come cheap. Of course, I barely see any professional with mediocre skills or style, those indeed got pushed out because of the market. Not to even mention the ones that gave social media a try, just search on any social media platform and you will find traditional artist just showing a few shots from a "making of" and people are watching those in the millions and create a 6 months waiting list for a commision from those artists. Art doesn't die, it changes, and we have to change with it and not act like old people stuck in the past, I'm sure there are people in the world still crying after their perfect steam engines and those nice elevator operators.
There will be photographers finding replacement work - with A.I, in a law company or flipping burgers. sure. But the point is, that nobody will pay photographers for photographing anymore, since all companies can have same or even much better results without photographer, without models, without location, without travel, without gear, without postproduction, without drones, without licenses, without permits. There will be a need to create stunning images, sure. But you can create ten images of places around the planet in a few hours from your marketing office for very little money. So, pay for photographers overall will fall to levels nobody can make a living on. There will be people shooting for fun, but don't expect to be paid in the future for product or model-shoots. Maybe for weddings or sports - but these places are already crowded; if all of Today's professional fashion, architectural, product, travel photographers try to work in weddings and sports, too, again, prices paid for photographs will come close to zero - so back to burger flipping or so
@@FStoppers But what do you mean by 'world class photos'? Just because people have amazing camera phones in their pocket, doesn't mean they can take great photos. You need a good eye and actual talent to take a great photo.
@@martin_the_artist_ No, you don't. You go and tell A.I.: "Create an image of a wild white horse galopping along a sandy beach having the sunset as a background". Done. No Camera, no composition, no gear, no location, no post, no drone, no local permit needed. Everyone who's able to spell that sentence will get results ten times as good as everything you can do with your camera. That's why businesses will stop to pay a dime on a photographer. The AI-pictures will be easy to achieve, super low cost and more than satisfy the marketing-guys. So, there's NO added value in taking a picture with a camera
I'm a hobbyist/enthusiast. I'm sure I've taken photos I could make money off of, but for me it's the joy of making artistic decisions using the gear I have at my disposal. I abhor taking pictures on my smart phone. I worry that real cameras will just not be worth the money for manufacturers to develop someday. I'd hate the real camera/lens combo to become entirely obsolete.
I'd be surprised if my kids generation need photographers. Between photo sharing, advancements in cell phones, and their general ability to manipulate images at such a young age, it just doesn't seem likely. I think the professional photography dies out with the next few generations. Unless something extremely innovative comes out that changes that dynamic, which is also possible.
I have an iPhone 12 Pro and a Panasonic G85 and there’s still a major difference when I print the photos. iPhone photos lack sharp details and the software bokah doesn’t make the subject pop. It sinks them in. Computers may take the heavy lifting out but you’ll still need a human to finalize the product.
Fashion, product and model photography including fine art is going to be killed stone DEAD by AI. Not a big loss tbh. But personal scenes, street photography, real photography will survive. The Instagram aesthetic has meant we are used to synthetic images that AI does well and soon, better than us.
I’ve been playing around with MJ and Stable Diffusion. I am a professional photographer and artist. AI is leaning, but it’s not there yet. You can zoom into anything it creates and see errors. It currently has a hard time doing hands and feet. Getting better at not giving every living thing ‘dead eyes’. I’ve been around since film, and pre-Photoshop. I remember the arguments when Photoshop came onto the market and it took almost 10yrs before it wasn’t considered ‘cheating’ by traditional art mediums. I remember having to doctor (touch up) film/slides before printing - dodge/burn, over painting. The AI looks good at the sizes currently being produced. Enlarge those and you can see the errors. Of course you can fix those errors in PS before printing. (Smile) What I do like about AI is that you can take old photos and feed them into AI and create new angles/looks, as well as enhancing quality. This is great for families with decaying family photos who don’t want to lose those treasures or wish the old photo was in focus. I also like AI for photography because you can feed it a photo and add additional details and AI will create amazing works of art for customers’ walls - which would have taken hours and lots of money to build sets, sew costumes, buy the right makeup and props, etc. Like so many things, how you view new technology depends on your perspective. AI is just another tool for artists, like using a camera, pencil, paint, or PS, Procreate, etc. And, like lost things…it also has a dark side, as can be seen by glancing through what’s being created. In a few years it will be hard to tell what photograph is real. Artists should be honest enough to notate if they used AI to help generate a particular work of art/photograph.
I agree with you. There is no denying that the photography industry is in decline or in a period of stagnation. What I think though is that the industry will not die completely, but it will become a niche market. Think about audio - though not similar but comparing photography and audio is accurate. Right now, vinyl record players made a comeback of some sorts for the past decade, and the market is growing although not making a dent in the music industry. Photography (done with film, mirrorless cameras or dslr) will still be around in the near future but it will not be representative of the prevailing market trend - which is mass market mobile smartphone photography.
A lot of comments are missing the fact that many of these databases work by having "farmed" work previously posted on the internet. A lot of artists and designers have had their copyright infringed to make these AI systems work. On another point - with all the other problems that AI could have made a real difference to - solving energy crisis / designing better medicines / capturing the genetic code of food crops so as to beat pests - many of the software geniuses instead chose to design a system to steal and copy art. Crazy.
One of the scary things I’ve seen in many years, and sadly, I probably agree. I’ve been a pro photographer for 45 years, specializing in fashion for much of that. For the past five years I’ve been seeing similar things regarding AI software being developed so designers and retailers can “shoot” their garments with a computer - no more photographer, model, stylist, makeup, hair - just a mouse and stylus and the software. With the latest developments, not even landscape photography seems “safe”.
At this stage as a photographer I'm looking at going to 35mm film, as at least it's real, and you can give the negative with a print as proof that it's human. That it has artistic human connection/empathy and real value. I actually feel like governments should block this AI art development around the world. It's not helping people in any sense having this tech in existence weather art or trust down the line, who is this for?
A large part involves the end value. Tradionally it was prints. Now it's more the online value for private venues and events - the momentary value. Sports and commercial photography have a different market from this. Weddings, the classic market, baby and child photos, and family or company events mostly just want online digital images and never prints. Phone images look good enough, when they are lucky, for online digital social media at PC and phone screen resolution. They would not print or enlarge so well. Yet the print value is down, and the instant online gratification to be the first is what carries the most consumer value today. This is a big part of what decimated the SLR/DSLR pro photographer and mfr markets. The flipside will be the sheer lack of any image history in families over time. They just get lost or deleted. It's actually harder to keep digital images over time, than physical prints or film.
Simply put, when someone needs to capture real life people and/or things they will need a photographer. A restaurant that wants their own food to be photographed, a wedding, a event and so on. But this will surely take away a lot from photography. Specially bloggers will no longer need to pay for stock photos and other examples. This could make life easier to commercial photographers in creating complex background and then they can just add the product on it
www.fstoppers.com/store
use code "youtube" at checkout to save $$$
Seriously though, does Fstoppers have to close up shop in a few years because the latest generation of photographers no longer need to be trained?
@@tempest63132 The thing is they still do. Just some of them think they don't lol.
Why would anyone pay for fstoppers when AI can generate the same but better.
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Exactly. That's how we felt the entire video. These photos look like shit
I just love picking up a camera to take photos. I can do the same with my phone, but I prefer the feeling of a camera, I love how I can choose a lens, pick my subject, focus here and there with a big camera at my disposal.
It's a feeling you cannot capture with a phone.
That's why people still buy film cameras and film... Leica ... it's all about the feeling.
AI images really have no meaning because they have no artist or story behind them. My friend who's partner died and he painted his rebirth, that kind of story you cannot capture in an AI illustration, but the meaning of a real photo or real painting, well, it's the story, the humanity, the meaning behind it.
I see AI images the same as fractals, they are an additional to our collective knowledge, not a replacement of anything.
This is why we still have people who build bronze sculptures when you have a plastic 3D printer. :)
As an professional Photoshop editor, and a begginer photographer, I feel the same.
A couple of years back, removing something like a trashcan in the back of an photo was kinda a big deal - you HAD to hire someone with Photoshop knowledge, because there was really no other way to do it.
Same goes for anything else, like restoring old family photos, replacing the sky or changing the color of something.
Same goes for photography, whether it be macro or portraits, wide land masses have access to it, unlike before. Everyone can now take photos and edit them. Hell, even movies are being made using phones nowadays.
All this being said, I didn't mind it until now. Yes it stripped me of my job, and I now have to chase another career, but ultimately it makes billions of others happier and more creative, and you can't argue with that. I mean, I'd be happy if my car would never break, but mechanics would probably have to find a new job.
But the AI thing is annoying me, because it's not a human construct. It's literally computer generated, with 0 emotion. It's going to make art meaningless. When someone takes a nice photo using his phone, I'm still happy to see it and count it as art. But the AI makes me feel sad somehow, we have come to the point where we're too lazy, or we don't have enough money, or time to create art.
And before you know it, we're going to have AI lovers, because why not.
Also, the AI thing is taking away jobs from models, photographers, editors, makeup and prop artists. We don't have welding robots in factories because workers have families to feed but no one gives a damn about all the freelance people in this industry.
Lot's of folks with a vested interest in keeping professional photography alive commenting here. Yes, certain types of event photography, etc will still need real photographers in real time instead of AI. But, that's not the issue. Most professional photographers need quantity as much as quality to continue to put food on the table. What first digital, then more and more automated editing software, and now AI has been doing over the last 20 years is nibbling at the edges of the bread and butter income of professional photographers.
It's great to get the Nike or Apple ad to shoot. Potential for big dollars. But it's the dollars from routine stuff, portraits, food photography, etc., the kind of stuff that automation and AI can do for free, that disappears from the pro's income as technology becomes more and more sophisticated. Sure, when digital and then cell phones cameras came along, the pros could still produce much better quality images, but a $500 digital p&s or cell phone could produce images that were "good enough" for most people, and they were essentially free, so the family portrait and event business thinned out. It's this kind of day to day income that technology is destroying for professionals. Those $4000 cameras and $3,000 dollar lenses need to work all the time to pay the bills.
It is not the full frontal attack on professional photography that is going to kill it. It's technologies nibbling around the edges of the pro's income stream that will kill it. And these technologies are sufficiently advanced to do just that.
At 71, I've made my living with a camera my entire career. Incredibly rewarding. But, if I was starting out now, I'd choose another way to feed the family and my creativity.
Lucid response. The on-set phenomenon is important to a big client, and they pay for it, but all the smaller jobs that keep us fed are going to disappear.
@@editor4958 You do get it! ✌🏽
So, you say what if everyone have a cool gear, it will kill photography? Everybody have a mouth, but it not killing musical industry
@@archie2.8 No, Spotify is doing that.
@@jamespowers8826 Spotify is no problem for really talented musicians
It's the photographer, not the camera.... That hasn't changed. I love the fact that everyone has access to professional cameras in their pockets. It gives enthusiasts affordable tools to showcase their talent (which encourages professional photographers to raise the bar) and it also gives millions of terrible photographers the tools in their hands to make our work look even better.... So it's a win win with the right mindset.
Yep. It's how you use the tool, not about how great it is.
The same is true of DJing. I am a professional photographer and DJ. Access to professional kit just leads to more and more bad practitioners, but good practitioners will still stand out and be most desired. Nobody wants to pay to see Colin from the pub dj Ibiza Rocks on his £6 iPhone app. Same way nobody want Aunty Mary to photograph their multi million dollar commercial campaign on her iPhone12 Pro. Paint had been available to the public for centuries but people still pay big money to go to a Picasso exhibition. This whole video is cynical clickbait for a channel running out of ideas.
NB any photographer arguing that the fake iPhone portrait mode depth of field even remotely resembles the effect of a wide aperture lens should sit in the corner and think about their life.
@@chrisbeschi4818 yea that’s what I was thinking with the clickbait. This channel really has gone downhill in terms of actual photography. It’s mostly gear review or this kind of stuff. Show us more photo shoots!
Only now a kid that’s 8 years old can generate more beautiful and professional photo’s than you if they use A.I. and you only still use your camera and photoshop. So there is actually a lot that’s changing..
@@IvoKlerk Maybe...but who in their right mind would hire an 8 year old in a professional job. Apple is not going to hire an 8 year old lol. People are fixated on the results but don't realize that the result is half the equation of a successful artist. There are plenty of successful people who's work are not world class. Take Peter Lik for example. The guy has editing errors in his photo and yet he sold a photo for millions.
I just shot an African wedding last week and the guests were rushing to get in front of me to take their own photos. There were cell phones all over capturing what I was paid to get. I found myself on a couple of occasions photographing the other “photographers” because it’s hilarious to see seven camera phones shooting the same scene you’re trying to capture.
I know exactly how you feel tbh….I’m starting to come to the conclusion that outside of the mini portrait sessions on the side of the weddings, the actual bride and groom only hire a photographer as a flex especially for the reception
the first sentence....out of context 💀
Thats why more and more people who get married forbid guests to take photos. Just enjoy as a guest!
African weddings are a blast to photograph. Especially the dresses. Everyone is eager to show off and have their photo taken.
When everyone is a photographer, no one will be.
Professionally speaking - keep it to concept. Your personal eye will win clients if you demonstrate you have something that no one else has. Even if AI business “takes over” work it into your workflow. Create new stories that will carry the same gravity - whether it be on a film camera, iPhone, an app, an entry level camera, or a Phase One. It’s about the stories we tell, not the devices we do it with.
Nice words 👏
Camera and smartphone are just tools but you are the creative
I don’t think 95% of ‘photographers’ can compare to the ‘creativeness’ of those A.I.’s though. You wouldn’t believe the stuff I can make with Midjourney (-Test/-Beta version) now. And I also think clients wouldn’t value the input from photographers as much as you think. If they can look at photo’s of others and make a moodboard and the A.I. turns their images in that style, then most clients will be happy.. The whole way we look at images is starting to change
Absolutely!
@@IvoKlerk I agree ... until they try it I dont think people can comprehend. The first day i signed up I spend 15 hours generating images (no sleep) and showed it to about 20 other people. Quite simply it is game changing and within a year or so it wont even be a competition, the AI is planly better, faster and cheaper.
Exactly. And AI will never be able to give the clients candid shots. Like for example in a wedding, things that happen in a fraction of second and us as photographers are there to capture, there is no way AI softwares can replicate that.
This literally has me in tears. I finally feel like I have found something I’m truly special at with photography. I fed one of my pictures that I was really proud of to DALL•E and in 10 seconds it spat out something that I liked more than my own picture. It’s truly terrifying and crushing as someone that has been actually shooting since only 2019. I feel like I’m just getting started, the best was supposed to be ahead of me, yet already I’m obsolete. Just makes my talent feel like a waste. Horrifying.
You could focus on becoming an AI expert? If it’s the future of art creation learn to paint with the newest brush.
2019 is still very fresh. You have time to get better. Software will make our lives easier every year, but that doesn’t make the people that use it any better.
@@mr.croissant7960 the software I understand and appreciate, it’s the fact that in 10 seconds an AI can fabricate a better cleaner image than me with an A7R III with G-Master glass and hours to edit. That’s what scares me.
@@ActuallyDKM A photographer with 30yrs under their belt will be better than you. No offense, but there will always be someone or something better then you. If you let that hold you back, then you’ve already lost.
@@mr.croissant7960 again, I’m not upset that someone with 10x the experience is better. It’s AI like DALL•E that scares me.
Technology has a way of eliminating jobs. The common argument is that while jobs might go away, new jobs always spring up in unforeseen ways.
I imagine photography as a profession won't be completely dead in the next few decades, but opportunities will be significantly diminished.
and paid way less
Photography and Music. They're two things people paid far more for 25 years ago.
@@aussie2uGA Not really. Music makes money from live performances. CD's was WAY over priced and ripped-off the consumer for years.
For me, one of the biggest things I love about photography, or filmmaking for that matter, is the idea that you are capturing moments. Something real, that actually happened, or that you put the time, effort and craft into staging, and then you captured it. To me, that skill and ephemeral nature of the art form is where a lot of the value comes from. That said, the people that have paid me over the years might disagree and be thrilled with having computers make manufactured imagery for free or cheap. Like most things of this nature, it will likely cause some disruption, and then we'll shift and settle into a different evolution of what it means to work and create in this industry. Is this the END!? I kind of doubt it...but it will definitely have an impact of some kind to be sure.
I've made a very good living for nearly 40 as a portrait, wedding and school photographer. Survived the change over to digital from medium format and continued to make good money for several more years, but as cameras got less expensive and cell phone cameras got better the industry has declined as a whole. I'm glad that earlier this year I decided to retire and now just shoot for the pleasure of it.
Same here
I don't know how your comment add value for the younger generation.
Or was to simply said that you "escaped"?
Quite childish innit?
And I am just at the start, one year before leaving the art academy. Yes, I am scared. But whatever... climate change will kill us all in a few years, so I will never have to spend so much time as a homeless, living beneath a bridge. Maybe I should try the shortcut called "bullet in the head". Heared its very effective for young, healthy people to quit the agony before it really starts. 😂😅
Honestly, right? People got to stop catastrophizing everything they don't understand. @@eugenefritz6669
Well, in my observation most professional photographers take pictures of events such as weddings, engagements, newborns, graduations, family sessions.
Obviously computer generated people don’t affect those at all.
Exactly. And you can't fake those moments with AI : reminds me about "fake memories implanted to someone's head" in some SCIFI movies
Those industries are saturated. Most photographers do them to pay bills. Plus, what happens when the smart-phone will achieve those looks.
Also.... if a photographer thinks their main product is a digital file with pixels, they are in the wrong business (notice I said business not hobby). I surveyed my clients recently for my family portraiture, one of the questions was what they loved most about my service, not one said beautiful photos, not one. The most common answer was around how they felt during the shoot- they felt relaxed, they felt I was in control, they didn't have to worry about the kids, they loved the experience etc. Folks, if you are doing this so someone pays you, you had better have more than fine images as your main selling point. BTW, 85-90% of my clients are referral or they saw a print of my work in a friends home.
Also.. As a general rule of thumb, AI can't inherently make something from nothing, all it is doing is compiling images until they look just about right, it's not making an image from the absense of an image, it's not creating art as it has no way to envision what it wants to create, it just fulfils specific parameters. The idea that AI will make humans redundant even in tech is a stupid one. As a software developer myself who works closely with an AI framework to do my work, it still requires a reference point and a starting point and an end point.
@@ocubex Agreed! I have been dabbling in sports for a while and finally did 2 prom shoots earlier this year under a newly created side business. The first shoot was of some girls who met me during softball season. I love interacting with the high school athletes. The second prom was someone who saw the pictures the first group shared. Both groups said they had a blast with me interacting with them and that it was so much fun. They both volunteered that based on the fun experience, they would definitely be repeat customers. I am realizing that personality/experience is just as important as product at keeping business going.
I honestly think this will likely hit those who make income from stock photography the most. Anything generic and without a "face" or specific meaning behind it is likely going to be replaced by AI generators in my opinion. As for the rest of the industry, quite a few genres of photography will still remain viable, as people will be looking to have something done that is meaningful to them personally (like weddings, events, christenings etc - you can't replicate these events and memories with AI), or where a client will want to showcase their real world work to others (property / interior design / architecture photography etc) and if recent rise in popularity of film cameras is anything to go by, it would seem people still care about authenticity and effort put into their work.
I would never be ok w AI imagery being used for my business. If a stock photo is AI generated it has no meaning and therefore no quality imo. No value there. Its not real. A moment was not captured. So it defeats the purpose of art imo. Ppl like art bc of what it represents and what went into it. Even paintings I think are absolutely ugly go for high dollars bc someone put the time and effort into that image. It becomes a 1/1. Not replaceable.
Your vlog - and I choose my words carefully - is right on the money. The professional photography market is dying and you speak with the concerns of a professional photographer. Where you spoke too loosely is when you said "photography is going to lose its value". It may well lose its *commercial* value, but photography in so much more than just another form of commerce. It is so much more than a way to earn money. It is, or can be, art. And no amount of software or technology can turn an image - however beautiful it may appear - into art, because art is a communicative act between one person and others. It connects people. Consider poetry. Which poem has more value to you: something written with love by your child to you on your birthday, complete with odd rhymes and poor scansion, or something that mimics the crystalline structure of a Shakespearean sonnet that is generated by a computer program with the click of a button? The latter might even sell for more, but the former has value far greater to you, I am sure. Because it is an expression of love. Photography is the little different. I create images not to make money, but to share myself with others.
word ✅✅✅💯💯💯
Good points... I think the value of photography as it is right now will still be there and will still continue to remain, in part and as long as consumers know whether the image in question came from a real person/people or from an AI... certainly the landscape will change, so that will be scary and interesting to see.
I share your way of thinking.
Beautifully said. Only a highly insightful and intelligent human being can say what you have written in your comment. ✌🏽🌷💓
Shallow depth of field was/is not what separated pros from amateurs! Lighting is the difference. When a smart phone can give you good lighting then there will be a problem. Or when nobody understands good lighting anymore then we have a problem. We may actually be there as most "professional" photographers don't know good lighting.
To Lee that was huge in his mind. Lighting is my number 1 priority.
It's been known for a long time that smartphones under the right lighting can produce really good professional results. Thing is, once you have the skillset to understand and use light to create professional images... you're probably a photographer and using a proper camera as your primary creation tool.
Well also what separates cameras from cell phone cameras is telephoto reach as well as aperture changing. You can't shoot on a cell phone stopped down to like f/11 or so to get sunstars. You can't shoot a bird in flight that is over 100m away from you. You can't shoot fast moving sports from far away.
@@toddysurcharge771 I have an S22 Ultra and it has a 10x tele. I can definitely get birds in flight. I have a great clip of a pelican skimming a lake at sunset and it's not that far behind what my camera could do.
Of course, it's got nothing on my proper super tele lens in many situations (the low light is absolute shite on it) but for a number of things it definitely cuts the mustard at least for social content. Surprisingly good.
Photography won't die. We just have more tools for different uses. You can't replace photos for reviews, or race events and such, cus the point there is to take photo of what actually happen, or pics of damage, wear, take pictures of someone driving a car or riding a bike. You can't fake a real life moment, a real event, world championchip win, a race, that bicycle part, or what ever reviewed. I do a lot of review, product photography with my phone but I am not a fan of the distortions, its very noticible of an round subject is in the corner rof the shot, or straight lines in whole picture. Most if not all Smartphones have wave distortion. It's horrible. But not as noticible with nature shots, like when I take pics in the forest of some trails, or flowers or what ever. Just that alone screams get a proper camera to me. There is and there will be a need for photography, photographers, but I won't hire a pro photographer now, as I do reviews of stuff I use and take pictures and document stuff for my reviews as they happen. For tha tmy smartphone does the job, but sure would like to have no distortion, and more detailed pictures. I also need Nd filter, I've not gotten those for my phone yet but if I get a camera I defenitly will. And now as market back to normal in Norway I can get any camera I want. Not sure which yet, but it looks like new camera snighy come soon, but I don't know for sure. But I am in a paralysis of analysis. I find cameras to be harder to decide on than bike parts
Yeah wedding photography definitely cannot be replaced by this.
He said Pro Photography not Photography
@@markshirley01 Sorry I forgot to add pro, but you get my drift. but same goes for both. I see Air just as another tool in the toolbox, not and replacement for the toolbox with the tools.
@@mtbboy1993 how can it be a tool if everyone will be able to use just by typing a short text?
@@zeronz87 I did not mean a physical tool😁
It may actually be the case that "Photography" becomes the art form. Kind of like the way you may think that a camera would end landscape/portrait painting, but it didn't, it put a different value on the price of paintings. The kindle was meant to rid the world of books, but it didn't. People still prefer to read from books over digital copies. So what I think will happen is, the digital "fake" age will come and it will enhance the value of real photography. It will do the opposite of what you think because people wont be bothered to go out and learn the "art" of photography.
Yes, the ai won't be able to out do original creative art, but lots of mediocre art will be exposed as such.
I tend to agree. Photography will go through an AI phase where pretty much anything is possible. However it will succedd in de-valueing the importance of each image. Greater respect and value will then be applied to 'Real' images. Digital protography was similar in impact - meaning that we now take thousands of images, but each one has very little value. I only have 300 images of my childhood, making each one incredibly important to me. The photographers that continue to create a meaningful emotional connection image will still make money, however I can't help but feel sad that most people are so de-sensatised to images these days it's getting tougher to link an emotional attachment to them. I have so many friends that take thousands of images of their children but cannot find/recall a single image to show me when telling a story. It's lost in the void of social media.
I am guessing that any type of art is dying thanks to AI. From music to photography, no one will be spared.
But there will always be people who want to do it themselves, who like the learning process, the final results generated by themselves.
I personally love listening music and going to see concert. There's no way I am going to see a computer on stage.
As a photographer, I like to learn and teach any kind of techniques. Photography does not only help to create photographs, it is also a way to meditate, go out, realizé yourself.
Since I believe more and more ppl will have psychological issues, art will help them getting out of it. Photography will be one way.
So I would say yes and no to your topic 😉.
PS: that being said, I am still sh** scared!
Well said. It is scary to hear so many being so complaint with whatever they are being told to the point of stopping your self from creating which like you have mentioned will have a giant impact on people's mental health as The Arts are a form of meditation therefore we heal thru art/creation.
Very well said , conducting workshop, tours or photowalk needs really knowledge and passion. And this will never dye. Following the job cut in IT sector and ongoing war with Russia. I don't think AI will take over human mind.
There will always be a market for “real” art , photography and music. That will never change
I think the doomed argument over-estimates ordinary people's artistic abilities when it comes to compositions, lighting etc. Maybe they have the tools to do it themselves, but they don't understand the effect those tools have.
Also with wedding photography, a photographer will still be hired at least to get coverage of everything. There needs to be a designated person there who'se only job is to think of coverage.
Most of the clips shown here with people using phones - such as the water on the ground trick - I bet you that was done by a budding professional + a phone. Ordinary people don't know how to do stuff like that. It's all boring shoulder-high POV compositions with non professionals. It takes time, effort and research to get those interesting angles which most people don't bother with.
Sure, the industry might shrink - where the low-level low value photographers will be made redundant and the creative ones are kept.
The people who don't see value in professional photography are fools.
There are so many nuances to different types of photography. The movie industry has not died, people go to theaters to see plays, and they still go and see display art and museums. Technology did not eliminate art forms. The stories will always be out there. We just have to use the tools to tell them. Photography will not die, nor can it be totally replaced by computational photos. Use the new tech as a tool. To be honest, I now use a combination of cameras to do the work. It has been that way for over a decade. Change, adapt, and remember, the only time reflected light you catch of any subject will be there once. It will never be the same again. Tell that story with your images! Do not fear change. Use it!
The only reason Movie theaters still exist is because they made a deal for first rights to premier in exchange for profits to streaming services. Since the pandemic Streaming services have hosted movies the same day as theaters. Now what is happening? $3 Movie tickets because they can't survive anymore and streaming companies don't care for the deals anymore
Interesting you bring up the movie industry. While I don't think AI will completely destroy the video or photography markets, it is going to take a huge chunk of income streams for people in those jobs, and totally eliminate some aspects of them. Look on youtube for Unreal Engine 5 short films. Its not there yet but its is awfully close. In the not so distant future you will be able to prompt an AI with a few shows you like and it will create an entirely new tv series or movie that in that genre. A company will be able to prompt an AI for unlimitiless realistic images of people to use in ads.
I think AI will kill stock photography/video, CGI and animated movies/shows and more. I think artists will have to concentrate on capturing live events which the demand for will drop due to the easy access to incredibly capable cameras.
AI is on the verge of displacing people in many fields. Artists, Lawyers, Doctors, Writers, Researchers, Transportation, Webdev/Programming and yes Photography. It won't replace all the people in those fields but its going to take a huge chunk of the low hanging fruit.
Well said!
Watching this reminds of what us in the music community have been going through for a few years with the perceived value of music plummeting to $10 a month.
I would say it just means we have had to more than just musicians and craft people, we have had to learn different skills of communicating with an audience, whether content and events.
Community for me, is the most important word for modern artists and we have to intentionally build in strong communities.
Also tech has always lead the curve of music culture it's literally started genres, like house, techno etc.
Whatever happens, participation is how determine it for ourselves.
Happy creating in a brave new world!
They're paying for the professionals experience, it's up to us to own the moment and make your clients feel like they're paying for someone who knows their shit. The number one compliment I get is not the work i turn in, but how I make them FEEL when I work with them. I'm not worried at all.
I think that definitely makes it still something to look forward to since people, in theory, are still gonna want genuine human connection or an experience
Exactly...it's the EXPERIENCE that counts. Think of yourself as a vintage photo booth. Technically you still have the equipment that most don't have. Remember when Polaroid cameras just vanished and made their way back on the scene a few years back? It may not be as popular BUT there's still a market that people are will to pay for. Find different ways to incorporate AI and make your images even more desirable. Constantly reinvent yourself
I worked as a photographer for Cashman Photo in Las Vegas, mainly for the Beatles LOVE show at the Mirage. My job was to convince strangers to embarrass themselves in front of a bunch of other strangers in the lobby or showroom of a Vegas Strip show, and I just laughed with everybody and had a great time. I became one of the top photographers there just by having fun with people, all of whom had cell phones in their pockets.
Thank you for NOT ignoring this like so many on RUclips. Photography will primarily shift to being for live events and use cases where truthful accuracy is needed
As a professional you need to move on as well and adapt and find your own niche and value. Stand out, do things differently and most importantly understand the needs of your customers. Don’t stand still, adapt and improvise, learn something new every day.
Or just quite the game and do something else.
@@jonneymendoza that's always an option. But no matter what other game you choose, you will find similar challenges of change and need to adapt as well.
easier said than done.. and if done, the older you are the harder it is.
@@pzellerphoto Agreed. Technology is making great leaps and bounds that are making life "easier" for us all. In the process, it is blurring the lines between pro and amatuer. How do we continue to market ourselves as the "pro" of the new trends? That is how we survive.
@@mrphoto yea just change career. Gave up on photography because of the issues around it and how tech just made it none profitable to pay the bills. Am now into IT
What worries me greatly is something I don't see people talk about often. It's the part where we won't be able to know if the picture is real or if it was generated. I'm sure for many people it won't matter, a cool picture is just a cool picture to them. But for me, it does matter a lot. When I see amazing landscape pictures, I wonder damn what a view is, and I imagine what it would be like to stand there and experience the beauty of the area myself. And if that landscape picture is generated by AI? Well it just loses all meaning for me
I remember a few years ago I found a goofy picture of a cat (forgot what it was exactly, but it was a cat doing something unexpected yet funny) the picture seemed real to me (I'm an illustrator and photo editor so I usually can tell if something is edited). Because I thought the picture was real it brought so much dumb joy. Later I backtracked, found the original uploader, and realized the pic indeed was photoshopped so well I couldn't tell. And it just lost all meaning to me, no more dumb joy out of the picture because it simply wasn't real. Some things only have meaning if they are real. When I see portrait photography of people I wonder what kind of life they lived, and what's behind those eyes. Even if the pictures are edited they are still real, the person in the picture still lived a life. And a portrait picture is AI generated, besides being a cool-looking picture, what is the meaning of it?
Agree… in such a world liars like Trump will say “Fake News” and it might be .
The biggest market software like DALL-E 2 will disrupt is the stock photo industry. No more crossing your fingers hoping one of your stock photo subscription websites will have a photo of "an elderly woman with a baseball cap holding a purple alligator." You simply wait for your prompt to generate an endless series of images to choose from.
Now this is hilarious and true at the same time
Well photography didn't kill painting, so I doubt AI will kill both painting and photography, after all AI generated images based on your input, and to create anything of use you already need pretty clear image in your head, and need to make many iterations with AI to enhance output. All of AI work is also based on pretty popular stuff on the internet, so it often gives similar vibe when it comes to composition lighting etc. I plan to use AI in a pro work to create concepts for photoshoots, and then expand on them, and improve my craft. Don't let AI kill you, use AI so it doesn't overtake you XD
I don’t think you are looking far enough down the line, in 10-20 years you could have an image generator that makes it so that you can get the same result that you might get in a matter of seconds. It’s based on stuff on the internet now but the technology is in it’s infancy, it will get more sophisticated fairly quickly and will make it so you could make photorealistic images without having to set up real lights, get real people, use an expensive camera, etc.
@@FedThePoopy Also, at the dawn of photography, there was an initial high cost investment for equipment and one had to dedicate the time to hone his craft.
@@FedThePoopy I don't agree. I think people would still be looking for photos of real moments captured or the artistic vision of profesionals.
@@FedThePoopy I think it could be even earlier than what you're expecting, but still you're not gonna stop it, with stable diffusion model being able to run on consumer class GPU already, and what's more it's open source, so everyone could literally make own AI based on it. And there are also AI's that write light novels, and write music, and this also isn't gonna be stopped.
There is one questionable thing about it all however, and that's high possibility for fraud, and framing someone into something they didn't do with AI generated imagery (though I think it's also possible with PS, here ofc level of entry would be very minimal).
Still you're not gonna stop research on AI, and it will be more and more available, so I still think it's best to get to know it best you can, otherwise you don't even know what you're up against.
Hope it was somewhat readable xD
umm, who makes a living painting these days?
Sure, the technology has evolved dramatically in recent years. But having good camera doesn’t make a good photographer. What makes a photographer is their vision, their ability to see, and compose the shot, get the most out of the model etc. This is all learned by the photographer, and can’t simply be relocated by someone who doesn’t have the vision to see the image in the first place. And the vision, the ability to see the image, and being able to produce good work consistently is what makes photography difficult. This is much harder to explain, and it takes years or training. It’s not the gear or the technical stuff.
Nice, but that vision o ability can't compete against AI, cause this makes the same job or better, in seconds and for free...
The excitement with which we zoom towards these new and potentially life altering technologies is Ludacris to me. That people are excited about tech that will not just end careers but also have the power put people in situations they were never in so easily and quickly is crazy to me. I'm worried that the bar for creativity will be as basic as knowing how to string words together
I dont know about you, but i am going act a fool.
@@90boiler You just need to continue to Xibit your creativity.
I teach art a lot at a lot of different institutes, and recently I took up photography seriously. I don't have a massive budget, so I invested in fairly old second hand gear (Nikon gear) - some old classic manual lenses, slightly newer prosumer gear but still old and a few bits and pieces, also a very old film camera from the 1970s (Pentax).
Being a painter and draftsman since I was a very young child (drawer? calling a kid a 'draughtsman' doesn't seem right) I admit I had a big head start in learning photography.
When I finally did a few presentations in clubs, other serious amatuer/enthusiast photographers said they were blown away, and their very first assumption was that I must have spent tens of thousands of euros on the very latest mirrorless cameras and Z mount lenses. Some of them had spent ten times what I had on their equipment and were frustrated their results weren't as good - and very interestingly, thought that meant there was a flaw in their gear. Friends of mine also have spent huge amounts on smartphones with cutting edge cameras, smugly assuming they could now take photos just as good as any professional, but then looking at my photos, or those of long time professionals vastly more experienced than me, are flummoxed as to why they're not as good.
I've tried to explain it's carefully selecting your theme, subject and ESPECIALLY composition, composition, composition, quality and direction of natural light/artificial lighting and shadow, colour, controlling your focus and depth of field, and getting the correct ISO, aperture and shutter-speed. Try to create an atmosphere and tell a story. You can create 'razor sharpness' or 'smooth bokeh' and all the other pretty effects with pretty basic gear just by mastering the fundamental skills. Which, of course, involves hard work.
Equipment does not make a good imagemaker: I have a personal theory that when there was that huge spike in DSLR sales, a big chunk of those cameras were used for a week or two and then ended up under beds, in closets and gathering mould and moisture in sheds and garages.
Text to image AI makes me quite uneasy - it's amazing technology, and an incredibly powerful tool. In a deeper sense, it can't replace human art making - it has no interiority. But I'm worried it's a genie out of a bottle with - like social media - pretty drastic societal effects coming down the tracks, some we can't predict. I also worry that while it's in many senses inferior to a human artist, it's unbelievably faster, cheaper and can run 24/7 without human care needs. Many vested interests might think that if it produces viable market products, that will be good enough. It's not the tech that bothers me, it's the decisions humans will make with it that bothers me.
It's impossible to see yet how it will turn out. There's actually surprising things it cannot do (ask it to make Iron Man and Wonder Woman standing next to each other and be prepared to see some pretty strange stuff) so maybe it will hit an unforeseen wall trying to follow a brief the engineers haven't predicted. After all, it isn't anywhere near human intelligence.
Very well said!
I'm nowhere as good as a photographer. But it's always funny when someone sees a pic I took with the cheapest Canon DSLR camera with a third hand cheapish (nothing in photography is cheap) lense and tell me "Well, you must have a great camera". I'm always like... Nope, the cheapest you can find.
It's funny how people equate good photos to expensive gear when they are really not correlated.
Also, to your point about people loosing interest in their cameras after a week, I'm pretty sure it's because they hadn't cared to really spend time to find the correct gear they needed to use the camera. Had I stick with the 18-55mm kit lense my camera came with I'd have probably regretted buying a camera in the first place. But buying the third hand lense (a 55-250mm one) brought forward where I felt the most comfortable taking photos (turns out, me loves telephotos 🤭) and now I'm hooked af.
Art will never die. People that call themselves artists who are merely opportunists may surely shrivel, break apart & fade away like dust in the wind.
Those with no skill or talent will constantly try to destroy those that do. And it’s happening now. believe me. Art is almost dead now.
@@eeriened3525 It sounds like you are accepting defeat. Don't do it!
@@skyko How to fight something this big? The art market is alright completely crazy. I think, the big names stay big, but nothing new will rise after the AI-blow. Children born today will see this as normal. Movies scripted and maybe animated by AI soon, the death of art galleries, the death of small cinema, small business filmmaking, the death of photography because why taking the cost and effort if you can the best results in seconds for cheap? The wet dream of every bigboss-bussiness-shareholder. No more copyrights, no more waiting, no more artists. The development is shattering. Why hireing a whole army of concept artists and animation artists, if a dude with prompting-skills is enough? In a few months we will hear the first announcement of a big Hollywood movie, fully made with AI. Made by Disney. I bet, this will happen very soon, if it didn't happen already. We, the artists, the creators, we are an dying breed. We delivered so many ideas, flooded the internet with our work and now we realized, what the data collecting of big companys was all about. They feed their algorithms with our stuff, so they can trash us. And I can't even be angry. Thats just capitalism. Its how our world works these days. At the end, the next generations will never know, what a camera is, or a pencil. They will sit in front of their smartphones and believe, what big company wants them to believe. First they killed our climate. Then our equality. Stole our resources. And now they take everything else with AI, so after the old generations are dead, the world lies in burning pieces. Only for money and a deep lust for hating the young ones, the new ideas, the change. They destroyed everything at the end. The ultimate holocaust. I know, that sounds crazy. But in a few years you will understand it, I am sure.
@@hidicproductions4849 You are an intelligent, passionate and insightful artist. You are most likely correct - UNLESS enough of us just say no. NO! There's not a lot they can/will do if enough of us do not comply. Hopefully the plandemic, scandemic woke more people up. I have confidence in humanity as a whole - even though sometimes it seems as if most people are dumb as bricks.
I found it interesting how things changed from film to the digital era. Back in the film days us photographers we far and few between, certainly here in the UK. There just wasn't many of us around. However, once digital came along that changed. By 2010 digital cams were getting pretty good and this made it easy for the masses to go out and use a camera. So, today we have zillions of people who call themselves profession photographers when in reality there're far from it. The natural light photographer is a being who makes a big noise about being just that, a natural light photographer but of course, all that means is they don't understand lighting. Things will always change, move on but I truly believe professional photography will change and become less of an accessory.
I am counting on it 😊
It's not that natural light photography don't know how to use light. Some don't know how to use artificial lighting.
@@sethsmith8701 or just prefer natural lighting. To say all natural light photographers do not understand artificial lighting is preposterous
@@SurferKroky that's why I said "some"
@@sethsmith8701 I was referring to the original comment not yours. Basically I was agreeing with you haha
You are spot on. Same thing has started with the music industry.
You know how sometimes film photography is a sign of real photography skills and digital photography is the less prestige one, I think the same thing is going to happen with phone and AI photography - Digital photography is going to be associated with "authentic skills", which is a skill that a lot of people prefer over taking a picture with a phone. Also, drone shots can't really be replicated with phones that easily yet, and even if AI images could replicate those images visually, it's the stories behind the images that are more important sometimes.
Some very interesting and valid points. I can only speak for myself here…AI won’t work for professional sports because the whole point is to capture a specific human(s) in a specific location. Even though AI could generate beautiful scenes with specific athletes…it defeats the object of the photo….bearing witness to something incredible. I’m sure some companies will cheap out but they will get backlash. As for my product work, most of the products I shoot (cannabis) are completely unique so I don’t think an AI would work since it won’t be 100% accurate representation. All that being said, I’m not ruling anything out. It’s a good time to think about how as creatives, we can leverage AI where possible but find avenues to continue creating original work. Thanks for the vid!
Honestly, live sports in TV is the only industry pretty much immune to all these changes. Good industry to be in. Yet, the pay notoriously sucks.
I think there's going to be a renewed appreciation of the organic and natural instead of the synthetic and artificial, kinda like the difference between a mass produced shoe and a hand made shoe. The easier things get the more they tend to loose their value and interest .
Hence the revival of film and analog cameras. It's why people are attracted to retro anything. It's what drew me in to the Fuji X system. I LOVE the look and feel of many of their cameras that have dials and look like film cameras. I grew up shooting in the days of film and for me the transformation of photography from film to digital has been pretty depressing. Nothing is real anymore. When I first started shooting, photoshop was only used by commercial photographers, fashion and graphic artists. Altering or drastically manipulating photos was taboo and frowned upon. Today, it is necessary because people now expect an altered reality. 70 year old women expect portraits with no wrinkles or blemishes and 20 year old skin. Landscape photography is so overly manipulated the beginning photo and ending edited photos are often completely two different scenes. With film, the accepted tools were brightness, contrast, a little dodging and burning and occasional filter over the lens. Most of today's "professional" photography is gaudy, total fantasy and tasteless- but unfortunately it's what people have become accustomed to- thanks to social media.
Eaxctly! Every
one...for some reason is always fascinated with the past and wonders HOW they can recreate the experience DESPITE the new age technology.
People still appreciate vinyl.
It will always be room. I think clients pay for the experience. You can cut your own hair but its nothing like going into the barbershop. You still have to have the eye rather its a camera or phone
I agree that the future of photography is difficult to anticipate. There are many people getting great images from basic gear. Differential is the key.
Right now the biggest drawbacks camera phones have are the lenses, dynamic range, fine detail, color depth, micro contrast and reliable use of external lights (strobes/speed lights). At best you're getting a 10bit DNG, maybe 16bit in higher end phones. Things like moire, banding, and defraction still show up in all these camera's. I think the fact kids are picking up film again shows that variety is still very important to people.
I really struggle to get great results on a cell phone-probably says more about me than anything. But, still the detail is really lacking.
Facts! I've seen many instagram posts showing the difference between a smartphone and a professional camera. Professional ALWAYS looks better. Smartphone only looks good when you don't have the same image from a DSLR to compare to lol.
@@Feniche17 Lighting & Composition. Microfiber cloth, wipe your camera lens. Photograph just clouds. If it looks bad, it's the phone, if it doesn't it's you.
These guys did a whole series on smartphone photography.
DAY🌄>📷
NIGHT🌃 >📸🔘🕯️🏮🔦💡
Those AI apps can't make the photography industry die, simply because we live in a world with a reality and there will be events in our life and we have to take memories for that (wedding, convention, modeling...)
The day AI will take the entire industry, that day we will all be plugged to the matrix or like in Ready Player One.
Also, of course the market will shrink because of smartphone but if you want photos that stand out, you have to hire a real photographer
So long as you keep the AI apps away from your clients you wont have any problems.
I love your take, and agree with you mostly. But I still think the "value" of photography will continue to go down, not because everyone can do it now, but because people are starting to care less about photos now.
You can spend hours on a photo (going to location, setting everything up, editing process) then post it on instagram, and people will look at it for literally 1 and a half seconds and keep scrolling.
Or worse yet; you can spend hours on a photo, deliver it to a client for them to post on their instagram, and they get 8 likes. Photo could actually be amazing too.
@@rodbarker6598 the problem is the clients also have access to the internet, and sooner or later they will get to know that AI can do the same (or better) job they paid for, but for free and in less than 10 seconds
Good photos are still the by-product of good lighting, good editing and good composition. I disagree with 75 percent of what you said. Unless you want total fakery, A I. can make pro looking photos sooner than we think, like swapping backgrounds and whatnot
The difference between past transitions, ie, film to digital; and this current transition is that for the first time you're removing the human component. A person is no longer needed to create imagery. The same way robotics change the manufacturing industry. It sucks and I've definitely been thinking about selling out all my gear and just doing video.
No matter how dire that gets, my love will always be taking still shots. No AI advancements will ever take that from me.
@@jasonbodden8816
Well sure. Buts this video isnt about photography as a hobby. Its about photographh as a business and or career.
In that regard, there are real changes happening and its looking like photovraphy will be obsolete in the next few decades.
@@JoCoMoreno I can see businesses benefitting from not having to hire models and photographers and saving on those costs but in some other genres of photography I don't see it working out very well. Commercial photography will take a hit but I can't see a lot of portrait photographers having to be that worried about this tech.
Photography and videography will only change in about 10 years when most people will be inside virtual reality until then we have time
In the 1880 with the upcoming of photography the painters had the same thoughts. No, artificial intelligence will never replace art photography.
You make an interesting point I hadn’t thought about that
Who the hell paints now? It's a novelty like those into classic cars. Besides events, most photography industry will be at threat.
I think you can't compare this to era changes. From Paintings to end 19th century photography the effort to create a picture was almost the same. The costs for photographic equipment may have been even higher.
The thing is this only shows examples of images of people. If you shoot for interior designers or architects, I don't see software taking over any time soon.
Being a hobbyist I have seen a change as well. I don't think the aspect of creating art with a digital camera will ever die. It is no different then how we still use oil paints to create an artwork. But I could easily get the same effect on my computer with no mess and no knowledge of how to mix paint. It is just a different form on how to create it. But what is does is get more people creating. And I think that is what happening now. A few years ago I took my son's senior pictures for him. I told him I wasn't a professional and if he doesn't like them we would pay for them to be done. He actually loved them and felt more comfortable. Other family members seen them and asked me to do theirs. I have never done portraits but love to learn on RUclips on a channel like this. I also attended a wedding that they announced that they would not have a professional photographer and they encouraged everyone to send their phone pics. I see a whole group of people that don't care about print. They are looking at it as images on their phones. So yes I think there will be a less of a need for professional photographers - it won't go away but if there is a less of a need there will be fewer people going into the business.
Your comment NAILED IT!!!! absolutely accurate. Blessings
Not on you at all, but I feel bad for the people who are so shortsighted as to believe they don’t need anything printed of momentous occasions in their lives- every digital technology eventually moves on. It always has. It’s part of our job as professionals to help our clients to understand that.
Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc., eventually disappear. Hard drives & flash drives eventually fail, as do CD’S & DVD’s. Or the technology just becomes obsolete over time and the methods to use those types of media disappears. Don’t believe that? Ask anyone who stored important items on Zip or Jaz discs. Or filmed their wedding on VHS (or beta). The simple truth is that if you don’t have a physical print of that moment then in a generation or two (probably much sooner), that moment will be gone.
@@kevinyounger7854 WOW!!!! Kevin you are also right!!!!! and that is an EXCELLENT selling point for prints and albums. Thanks for sharing your marvelous and accurate thought.😀
Your fear is legitimate because it threatens your well being.I would like to share a little story. When I was a kid ,my nextdoor neighbors kid got a Sega console.He stayed in the house for months, while we played outside. He eventually came out to play.Moral of the story?Human interaction will always be our currency. We have also been fooled that it is the photographer that creates the images.When in reality we co- create with our subjects , even nature. The camera and software can fit in our phones , but the ability to create images that talk and connect emotionally, this part belongs to humans.
I sometimes wonder if this AI tech will push people to go full circle and value analog photography more. Analog could be seen as being more authentic. I've been seeing demos of AI photography for years at trade shows, NVidia showing off their tech, but it never really looks authentic. It looks good, but always not real. Likewise, your selected photos look good but are not authentic. The illusion is easy to break.
In before you realized AI can generate photo styles.
Feed it Portra 400 and you will get Portra Images
@@ReclusiveEagle sure but we have had photo templates. Colour profiles etc which all emulate film for a long time, you can still tell. Again, it’s about authenticity
a decade ago hipsters brought analog photography back, it went terrible once iphone apps started making filters based on analog cameras.
This will impact the stock photo market IMMENSELY! If a company with a creative director needs images for a project, which in the past may have required stock photography or hiring a photographer...that company can now create whatever image they need- exactly the way they want it.
which means hiring a professional that can do that which would not be cheap and not that different from hiring a photographer or a team to do the job. and 3d artists could do photo-realistic images of people it for a long time but that didn't impact photography at all.
Luckily my main job is that of a therapist (very hard to be killed by AI), but as a side hustle, I also do event photography. I really doubt that event photography will be taken over by AI though, since you are capturing live moments and people interacting with each other, which would be hard to simulate and also, people would want those exact moments to be captured, but who knows…
I wouldn't be so sure about the job of a therapist not being taken over by AI, after all, you go from point A to point B based off of parameters...
AI is replacing theraph !
Bro they are making a pretty face Ai that is gonna give responses based off of thousands of case studies. Therapy is in danger to.
@@yagutensho4044 I wouldn't be comfortable talking to a machine vs a person. It loses a lot of it's value when it's not a human being you are talking to.
@@toddysurcharge771 I would be more comfortable talking to a.i it's more anonymous and prone to human bias
I take many styles of photos but I enjoy weddings more. With weddings it will be a lot of photos. Can a cellphone hold that many images? I think when it comes to product and portraits yeah there is a challenge for us photographers but, what would you say about weddings?
Everyone has a camera. Many don't know how to use it other than a basic snap shot and some can't even do that. Many "pro photographers" that do have an eye for composition. Creativity comes from training, experience and skill. Bring on new technology. The pro will use it as a tool, not an end all solution. I remember when HDR came out and now how heavy handed some of my first images looked.
Yea, i saw this coming with a school photoshoot. The parents used their cellphones while we were taking the shots, and those parents never ordered any photos from us. I thought that there's no way a phone can be as good as my $3,000 camera so it didn't really bother me at the time. I had no idea cell phones can be as good as the professional cameras. I knew then that Professional photographers is on borrowed time.
And now, i saw how AI can literally generate any art or any photo with professional quality. This industry is good as dead. But it doesn't stop there. AI will literally kill almost every technical industry that needed humans. It's only a matter of time, and then humans will not be needed at all for anything ......
Nice but a photographer knows how to find a photo in scene. Tech still does not know how to take a photo, just how to process it. You are too focused on the tech and not the skill to find the image. A high end phone costs as much as a camera. Phones are just a tool. You still have to hire the craftsman. Sure IKEA sells furniture so why would anyone pay for a premium sofa or table. The industry is changing, and new photographers can choreograph and videograph. The photos can be processed quicker which leaves more time for more work
Exactly. Just like the saying goes "It's not the tool, it's how you use it". A guy with professional photography gear would destroy a hobbyist that only uses the phone.
@@gasoowannab or a pro with a camera phone. The camera has so little to do with the picture. Just look at the amazing photos taken before any of this technology. The images are haunting because the photographer captured the soul of the scene
Whenever this question comes up I always reference technology developments of the past. Cars replaced horses but the equestrian industry is still worth billions, CD and streaming replaced vinyl but Vinyl is still a major industry and growing, digital watches replaced mechanical chronographs but its not the digital watches selling for big bucks , e readers replaced books but books are still printed and sold in their millions. I could go on... however the key to any transformation is to find the value not the volume. Professional photographers will be valued if they continue to tell stories, make it personal, make it relevant and make it a joyous experience for their customers. For me as an amateur I will continue to take photographs with a camera and develop my skills simply because its hard, that's all the motivation I need.
I think you’re right to a degree. It will weed out the low end and create a gap. But high end will always have a market because some commercial clients will want a crafted image vs some randomness with an AI. To compare it to a product, people said phones and wearables would put an end to traditional watches but the high end watches are sought after because those with means want to differentiate themselves.
I appreciate that you mentioned bokeh as the difference maker today, i found it funny that it’s the easiest thing to spot.
Overpriced photography and equipment is going to end. Creative people still will get better results then average person and in commercial industry to win you will need to be authentic.
So fundamentally still everything is the same.
I read in a newspaper, at least thirty years ago, that Hollywood was looking forward to the day when they could invent digital movie stars, whom they could own by copyright, who would obviously work for no pay instead of millions, and to whom they could do anything, including horrific murder; after all, they could never really die, being unreal. It has taken longer than they might have expected; the author of the article has probably retired by now, but, obviously, it's coming.
Think it will be hard to replace the Al Pacino's, Jack Nicholson's and Meryl Streep's, a.k.a. real, good actors. But very soon it won't be a problem to replace all the Jessica Biel's, Scarlett Johansson's, Colin Farrell's and Ben Affleck's and the endless number of their lookalike's. We're that close to omit those pale, shallow "actors" completely, and I won't miss a single one of them
While smartphones and AI might be a threat to the profession and people who makes a living from it, none of those will ever replace the feeling of capturing a stunning photo with a real camera in your hand. In my experiences, photos on a smartphone tends to get taken and almost never looked at again - but maybe that's just me who aren't into social media and posting them online in the first place. In terms of AI, I haven't tried MidJourney or Dall-E, but I can safely say I would get no satisfaction from using either of those, cause the outcome is not something I've truly created.
If I go to Home Depot, I can buy paint, brushes, rollers, everything I need to paint my house. Yet there are many businesses that still make a good living painting houses. The cell phone, the 35 mm professional camera, and everything else in between are nothing more than tools. It is the 12-in behind the camera that differentiate a consumer from a prosumer from a professional. Eventually, I do agree that the photography industry as we know it will definitely change. However, I think it will be quite a few years until that happens. I remember watching several RUclipsrs lamenting how luminar AI was going to destroy the photography market. It hasn't happened yet. Maybe there is a program in the future that will do it but not today. I'll keep plugging along and finding my way in the market for as long as I can.
You can't paint a real house digitally. So wrong analogy.
Fail
@@DanTuber photography is, for the most part, digital. Painting is a physical act with real materials. However, the business model is the same. A customer can paint themself or hire a pro (painter.) Likewise, a customer can use their own camera or use a pro (photographer.) Different mediums, same process.
@@DanTuber a better analogy would be building your own website from scratch (and doing all the coding) vs using a site like Square Space. Both things still exist.
you are right, this video was made 8 just months ago.
check out how exponentially midjourney grew in months.
we can barely differentiate Ai from real ones now.
Photography of live events will still be needed. The AI generator (so far) cannot capture a perfectly timed ring shot or moment at a wedding. Even if you were to have an AI generated image it wouldn't be that exact moment that you are creating an image. As far as portraits go will AI be able to do it in the future yeah maybe but a big part of portraits is connecting with and building a rapport with you subjects and then informing your image with that personal connection. That personal connection is not something AI can do...yet.
The AI will send a group if mini drones for 1/4 of the money
As an artist from different fields I learned that it is the story that matters. AI can recreate all the techniques used in any art form but it takes a story, emotion, feelings, and overall, life experience to use those techniques the way an artists intended to show to the people. That’s one thing that AI cannot generate that we, a conscious individual can create.
In my eyes, I see this as a great potential to help us tell our story that we are trying very hard to tell to other people. It is scary that AI can do the work that took me years to learn but at the same time sets me free from all the technical side on things and just allow me to focus all my energy to make sure the message that I wanted to share to other people is the way I intended to show and the robots would just do all the hard work of crafting my art.
Here's the thing, after following this field for a couple of years.
I've been predicting that within 5 years we will see a digital picture frame, that will eventually be flawless color e-ink, that you can talk to to customize your artwork.
Hey Picture Frame, generate an image of a Japanese Torii Arch in a Japanese forest with a monkey hanging from it. Change the monkey to a bonobo. Place a path leading to steps that lead up to a shinto shrine underneath. Change the time to dawn. Do a variation of this image. Another variation. Have the light from the sun creating tiny god rays through the trees. Do a variation. Save the last variation to my favourites.
Now replace this with photorealistic images of people or anything else.
It will essentially be like a 2 dimensional holodeck where you can just talk your way through customizing the images. I don't know if it will even take 5 years. All the building blocks are there... voice recognition, image recognition, image generation, inpainting and variations on image generation, etc. Look how far DALLE came within one year.
And I don't think you even mentioned Stable Diffusion? It dropped a week ago into the public domain and the number of tools and integrations is exploding so rapidly I can't even keep up with it. And they have much bigger plans for their open source model (which DALLE and MidJourney lack)
I totally get your point and understand the concern but I think they'll always be a need for professionals. Even as a full-time working professional myself technology like this excites me. It doesn't destroy industries. What technology does do is lower the bar for entry and raise the standards that professionals must strive for. If you are already good at what you do, you don't have to be worried about this as long as you continue to strive to be better.
I think with any profession, it comes down to your reputation and popularity. People put more weight into trust that the job will get done and done fairly well. Even if you don't consistently take the best photos every time, clients feel comfortable knowing you are reliable and do a good enough job.
As a hairdresser, I can see some value remaining for images of my work with hair. Even if I could use AI to generate images of my clients, capturing the actual hair work (for my portfolio, social media, and even hair competitions like NAHA) will hopefully keep photography at least a little bit relevant. I imagine the same thing for chefs who want to shoot their plating, or tattoo artists who want to shoot their work. Already, in the hair industry if your hair photos look too good people cry "this is photo shop! You're not that good at hair" and I'm sure in a few years they'll instead claim "this is AI! You're not that good at hair!"
You say that until A.i takes 2 minutes to do 50 pictures. No way will you spend hrs when you can save time.
@@miamitten1123 I think you misunderstand what I mean. If I showed you 50 AI images of haircuts would you let me cut your hair? What if I showed you 500 of them, would you trust in my haircutting skill more then? How many AI images would I need to generate in order to get someone to believe I would be able to give them a good haircut?
That is why i love your channel. An honest discussion within holding back. Thank you.
In 50 years, a poorly captured, unedited photo will have more value because everything will be so fake. Authenticity is what makes people great. Hopefully that translates over to photography like it has in video. Casey Neistat become an internet sensation for his authenticity. It definitely wasn’t for his cinematic be roll or color grading skills.
Bad thing that by just using few words AI will make a grainy, lo-fi image in seconds. However, i agree that film photography might have another chance if don properly and bring some value + good money as a limited resource media
This is interesting.
Modern technology is moving fast, very fast. Don't think this is the end of photography.
My parents were good amateur photographers and they have mastered digital photography.
Unfortunately, my father is no longer alive and my mother is in the final stage of dementia.
This is point,
You get a different market. People our age or younger are definitely going to try and exploit the new things. The older generation, I don't think so. They still attach too much value to the traditional method. bride pictures, school pictures, etc etc.
Event photography will continue to exist. People still want to see famous people in a picture (with a juicy story). A story of a famous actor with a fake photo does not sell.
And as a photographer, it's nice to get his picture,
I don’t think it’s going to die. I think it’s going to move into an era where it’s all about the content you make and who it appeals to. Rather than getting hired for jobs, you’ll get the opportunity to be as creative as you want and that will lead to fans or subscribers to your work.
The cameras are just a tool. It’s the story you’re capable of telling that matters. Not everyone has that special ability to tell remarkable stories through content creation. Then it will come full circle and people will hire professionals based on their preference of the way they tell stories, the mood, and the emotion their work evokes.
I'm a commercial shooter and mostly specific workplaces and staff. I'm all good. Creating a specific style connected to the human soul cannot be done with AI or most people. I'm all good.
i've been a professional fashion photographer for over 5 years now, and that is what i've always said. photography as a job will be dead soon.
Unless they integrate cameras with smartphones funtionalities there will never be a doubt on the epilogue of the profession... unfortunately.
Hopefully i will still be able to flip hamburger when the train stops. xD
Spot on - the software in my iPhone is so far ahead of my Canon gear. All the camera manufacturers are stuck in their own silos.
@@RichardLaurence except that phone packs 100x the R&D budget of a camera, and it's proprietary. Phones sell 10,000 times camera sales so unless you want to pay $500k for that camera and change it every 2 years, phones will always pack more technology
@@barryobrien1890 to be honest its not entirely that, pics taken by professional Gear are massive and even an average pc will have problem editing a raw file of that dimension, not mentioning the cloud sharing.
Phones take a lot of massive shortcuts both in video and in picture, having a "low res" (compared to a current pro camera) file but optimized to the extreme for the file that it is.
Have you ever tried to edit a photo taken by your phone on photoshop? I assure you its hellish compared to my Gear (Sony Alpha 7r4) as how it should be considering that a camera only has that functionality.
Imho They should be able to find a middle ground of sort.
@@barryobrien1890 it is true that the tech inside Phones are becoming more ridicoulous as time goes by tho... The chips of pro Gear are crazy as well i can guarantee you that. Tho i am not buying a new 5k camera every 2 years haha. I am not on that Level (yet)
@@MadLaVolpe Yes tech is driving everything now. I think people forget the amount of development that it takes to make a phone that sells for $500, but when you make a few hundred million of them it's easy to spread out the cost. A lot of phone tech and miniature subsystems like af motors and gyros are trickling into cameras making them not like your grandpa's brownie. It's all fun, but getting a great photo unfortunately is still a lot of work, practice and long hours. Capturing light is still hard.
The world will be soooo different in 10 years. I can't even imagine it
Illustration is probably more at risk than photography, but I agree, this time it's different. Things are going to change a lot this decade because of AI.
Not true. Illustrations are fake from the start. Photography will be more effected. Unless it's weddings or street photography. A.i will consume it.
Well, in a matter of fact, a picture generated by a AI cannot be copyrighted. They where a case few years ago of a photographer that a monkey took his camera and made a pretty selfy of himself. Later on, the photographer published this photo as his own and a guy used it. The photographer sued him and lost the case because the judge decided that animals aren't humans to begin with so they cannot have royalties and that the picture was de facto creative common. It would be the same with a work made by a AI and I don't see major companies daring to play with that and have de facto their design creative common unless they lie about it but would be hard to hide that I presume…
Artificial intelligent is the most heart breaking. I feel like my efforts aren’t worth it if an AI can do better.
Certain areas of the industry will definitely have to adjust, but f ex events, weddings, birthdays etc, that will still require a professional photographer.
Perhaps photographers just need to adjust their thinking. Instead of being a person behind a camera, maybe they need to focus on being a still image storyteller. I see weddings being the last professional industry to live through simpler because couples need a dedicated person to take the pictures that know how to handle a fast paced day. That’ll likely be the only reason to hire a pro photographer from the creative side of the photo industry. I do see high end fashion photography being dead in the next 5-10 years. Like you said, you’ll be able to just type in what you want with multiple variations of that photo. And I predict the ability to take the average persons face (not Elon musk) and merge them with the ai generated stuff. I’m excited for the next phase. We just need to change the way we see our “art” it was never the camera despite it being called “photography” photons. The capturing of light on to a medium. At the core we are story tellers. Don’t sell yourself short by being the guy/gal behind the camera.
Marketing companies will create the images they need directly, themselves. If all professional photographers would try to join those A.I.Creators, there were way too many, so, little to no payment, think of cheap interns rather than well paid photographers. All those saying "you just have to be good" are simply underestimating the pressure of possibly having a complete ad campaign pretty much for free versus paying for photographer, models, permits, gear, travel, location, post, retouchers, make-up artists. If marketing firm "A" does NOT want to do it, the now cheaper firm "B" will create pressure for all to switch. No models, no photographers AND more exactly to what the marketing guy really wants initially - and pictures close to impossible to create in reality - what makes you think you could still bill anything for taking photographs?
@@RonK who said anything about there even being marketing firms? Lol firms will crumble from a team to, AI planners and generators. Even the ability to “choose the final product” will eventually be automated. Data will soon “advise” us what image is best to use because it can search the infinite “database” and pick which images have the highest impact and most clicks. Seriously everything in our industry will be automated except whatever jobs need humans. The crazy part is MOST jobs don’t need humans. What’s even is a “creator” since we can now have AI “create” for us? Well the ai software devs need our ideas to feed the software in the first place.
Eventually Photographers will be hired solely, for their human instinct. So yea, no, photographers won’t be hired for much of anything. That’s why I think the wedding photo industry and event photo business will be the last to stand. Those images are captured exclusively. Meaning they can’t be generated because the event itself can’t be “generated”.
@@gnkstudios6138 I remember a BTS video of some photographer preparing almost two days with several assistants to shoot one image of a famous actress in order to create the poster for her new movie. She of course was available during the final five ten minutes only to take the picture - walk onto the set all dressed up, make-up already finished, capture the image, bye. Guess, that's just business as normal, and the photographer did not mind since he was paid for the two days of work.
The story fits in here, because he was working TWO days to re-create the shot as exactly as possible as ordered by the movie company's marketing firm - a very exact, complicate drawing with detailed instructions, what the set had to look like, where the light had to come from, what part was expected to be in whatsoever shadows and way more.
Now you tell me why that marketing studio would even refer to a photographer IF they could have entered all those parameters directly to an A.I-creator suite?
@@RonK they wouldn’t. Lol that’s my point. Photography profession will die like any other profession that loses its relevance. Firms won’t exist because a company won’t need a “firm” as the way we know it. A huge building with dozens of employees working for top brands in our area/region. The creative Director will have the ability to oversee everything and essentially do everything.
The “photographer” won’t have that title anymore. But there vision will remain relevant. They’ll take out their phone or glasses, (whatever piece of tech is more relevant) and snap a pic of that surrounding and literally every pixel can be modified with real surroundings or ai generated surrounding. So the “photographer will just choose what goes and stays. But yea I totally agree the days of a “pro photographer” being hired and all that jazz will be gone in the next 5-10 years. Weddings will still have a dedicated photo person but it’ll be because they need someone or anyone to do that job. Now will they get paid a living wage? Probably not. Because they’ll just be paid to shoot. Editing will get so easy everyone will literally be able to modify an image to their liking. Photographers will likely get hired through the venue because the couple can edit the images themselves.
The order in which all this happens is up in the air but I think we can all agree the profession of photography will die and those who call themselves photographers will either adapt have a new title or quit.
I think when the market hits peak quality ( photo realism with user inputted images of themselves) and peak market utilization, there will be a reverse trend for authenticity that will take place. When you have a market that is completely saturated with high quality work with very little effort, a sense of authenticity is craved and demanded. Look at video content now where people are choosing to shoot on phones because it feels more "real and genuine" vs choosing to go for higher production value via image quality. I also have a feeling people will certify that their images are actually shot and are "real". There will be people that still value tremendously the experience of actually being pampered and catered to by a professional photographer, from hair/makeup to set design, etc. However, that type of photographer is already a rarity as it is.
Wow this was 7 months ago. Just want to say this has been one of the more honest refreshing videos on AI and photography I’ve watched. .
I think smartphones are cameras that allow you to communicate verbally, visually and typographically.
Also we've been able to replicate other photographers work in post production at least for me in 2003-2005. Photoshop was around before then and others used earlier versions to do photo manipulation. The complicated part 🤷🏾♂️ I get but people are lazy 🤣 and the photography industry isn't shrinking. People buy a camera everyday more than they've ever done before.
What photographers have done is separate themselves from Smartphones. If you include smartphones, which the primary reason people buy them currently. The camera industry is booming, it just depends on where you stand.
Totally agree - I also think video is taking a hit as well. Short reels - throw away content - is there really any need for pro video setups any more in a lot of cases. Sony themselves have said they expect their cameras to be eclipsed by there phones soon.
I think the wedding video and photo industry will hang on in there for a bit tho.
I'm really not sure how I feel about this. I've learnt photography, Photoshop & own professional gear... I've never made a penny. My problem? I'm not a sweet tongue sales marketing person. I see other photographers make a living with it. Photographers who, in my opinion, are not as creative and detail oriented as I am.
Maybe your opinion isn’t correct.
@@mavfan1 I'd love to agree with you, but your comment is vague. What do you mean?
There are lots of people who got into photography for the "geek factor" of megapixels, dynamic range, etc. but have no idea of how to compose great images. There are those that got into it to "hide" behind the camera. The camera serves as the buffer between them and the subject. They receive a endorphin hit when the subject then praises their shots. People get into photography for many reasons. The ones who do it for "making money" are usually going to succeed regardless.
@@aussie2uGA I get your point. In fact, I agree. I find it actually sad that people who are willing to pay for a photographer seem to be attracted by... actually, I don't know. YES, some have an excellent positioning and marketing strategy and are good photographers. But, I don't still understand why some photographers who don't pay attention to the quality of their pictures get so many clients. And it's honestly frustrating.
They're just tools, and it's up to creatives to either embrace them or not. yes anyone can take a photo, yes anyone can edit, but no, no one else has your eye for composition, for framing, for story telling, for following a clients brief.
I for one welcome our AI overlords; for the longest time photography was out of reach for your average Joe, times where the average person wanted to get into the hobby, they wouldn't get any guidance from "professionals" it's always been very well gate kept and now we're going to see a flood of new and different art.
Lee - I think you're spot-on. While we will continue to have the creative eye; the professional gear (and the knowledge that's needed to maximize that gear); the compositional creativity; and the skillset in the Adobe (or other post production) ecosystem, the combination of today's smartphone technology, paired with the rapidly growing AI capabilities will change photography, forever.
This is different than going from the film age to the digital age. This is different than learning the advantages of Lr and Ps. Early-on, the advantage of smartphone photography was merely convenience - having something on your person that would allow you to capture a moment which would otherwise go uncaptured. But now - it's not just convenient - it's expected. Most of us have powerful cameras - in the form of a smartphone - on us at all times.
The fact that you, yourself, have legit - high quality images - printed and hanging on your wall, which were shot with a cellphone is HUGE! You have the best gear. You are one of the smartest, and most talented photographers of our era, yet it's not your high-end camera equipment you lean on for pictures of your family.
We have to call it like it is. We have to accept (embrace?) the pivitol change here. For those, like me, who aren't professional photographers, who are hobbyist, I think we'll be fine. We will continue to grow and be amazed by the art of our craft and the photography gear and tools we use. But for someone who does photography for a living, it has to be concerning. The massive decline in camera sales, coupled with the rapid rise in smartphone camera tech and AI advancements will have an immediate impact on most professional photographers.
Great video, as always. Cheers!
Photographers just have to adjust just like the painters did.
How many professional painters do you know?
@@FStoppers I don't know anyone personally, but that's exactly my point, of course that's gonna be a lot of people that gonna go out of business lol. Only the strong ones will make it, just like anything else.
Well I'm a painter and I can tell you any digital art have no value to me nor the people who are truly into art (not as an investment). People buy into the story. There's no story in a digital code. The world is becoming more and more shallow and empty. It's does not mean it's better. It's just more boring. That's what's worrying. Just like Instagram. It used to be king of cool. Now it's just a bore.
@@FStoppers Lots, and they are doing more than just fine, traditional painted commissions don't come cheap. Of course, I barely see any professional with mediocre skills or style, those indeed got pushed out because of the market.
Not to even mention the ones that gave social media a try, just search on any social media platform and you will find traditional artist just showing a few shots from a "making of" and people are watching those in the millions and create a 6 months waiting list for a commision from those artists.
Art doesn't die, it changes, and we have to change with it and not act like old people stuck in the past, I'm sure there are people in the world still crying after their perfect steam engines and those nice elevator operators.
There will be photographers finding replacement work - with A.I, in a law company or flipping burgers. sure.
But the point is, that nobody will pay photographers for photographing anymore, since all companies can have same or even much better results without photographer, without models, without location, without travel, without gear, without postproduction, without drones, without licenses, without permits. There will be a need to create stunning images, sure. But you can create ten images of places around the planet in a few hours from your marketing office for very little money. So, pay for photographers overall will fall to levels nobody can make a living on. There will be people shooting for fun, but don't expect to be paid in the future for product or model-shoots. Maybe for weddings or sports - but these places are already crowded; if all of Today's professional fashion, architectural, product, travel photographers try to work in weddings and sports, too, again, prices paid for photographs will come close to zero - so back to burger flipping or so
Professional photography will never die as long as you continue to create VALUE for your client.
Exactly. And when their cellphone can create world-class photos of themselves in any location for free, you're photos will become worthless.
@@FStoppers But what do you mean by 'world class photos'? Just because people have amazing camera phones in their pocket, doesn't mean they can take great photos. You need a good eye and actual talent to take a great photo.
@@martin_the_artist_ No, you don't. You go and tell A.I.: "Create an image of a wild white horse galopping along a sandy beach having the sunset as a background". Done. No Camera, no composition, no gear, no location, no post, no drone, no local permit needed. Everyone who's able to spell that sentence will get results ten times as good as everything you can do with your camera. That's why businesses will stop to pay a dime on a photographer. The AI-pictures will be easy to achieve, super low cost and more than satisfy the marketing-guys. So, there's NO added value in taking a picture with a camera
@@RonK I didn't even mention A.I
@@martin_the_artist_ But that's what this video is about.
I'm a hobbyist/enthusiast. I'm sure I've taken photos I could make money off of, but for me it's the joy of making artistic decisions using the gear I have at my disposal. I abhor taking pictures on my smart phone. I worry that real cameras will just not be worth the money for manufacturers to develop someday. I'd hate the real camera/lens combo to become entirely obsolete.
I'd be surprised if my kids generation need photographers. Between photo sharing, advancements in cell phones, and their general ability to manipulate images at such a young age, it just doesn't seem likely. I think the professional photography dies out with the next few generations. Unless something extremely innovative comes out that changes that dynamic, which is also possible.
I have an iPhone 12 Pro and a Panasonic G85 and there’s still a major difference when I print the photos. iPhone photos lack sharp details and the software bokah doesn’t make the subject pop. It sinks them in. Computers may take the heavy lifting out but you’ll still need a human to finalize the product.
Fashion, product and model photography including fine art is going to be killed stone DEAD by AI. Not a big loss tbh. But personal scenes, street photography, real photography will survive. The Instagram aesthetic has meant we are used to synthetic images that AI does well and soon, better than us.
I’ve been playing around with MJ and Stable Diffusion. I am a professional photographer and artist. AI is leaning, but it’s not there yet. You can zoom into anything it creates and see errors. It currently has a hard time doing hands and feet. Getting better at not giving every living thing ‘dead eyes’. I’ve been around since film, and pre-Photoshop. I remember the arguments when Photoshop came onto the market and it took almost 10yrs before it wasn’t considered ‘cheating’ by traditional art mediums. I remember having to doctor (touch up) film/slides before printing - dodge/burn, over painting. The AI looks good at the sizes currently being produced. Enlarge those and you can see the errors. Of course you can fix those errors in PS before printing. (Smile) What I do like about AI is that you can take old photos and feed them into AI and create new angles/looks, as well as enhancing quality. This is great for families with decaying family photos who don’t want to lose those treasures or wish the old photo was in focus. I also like AI for photography because you can feed it a photo and add additional details and AI will create amazing works of art for customers’ walls - which would have taken hours and lots of money to build sets, sew costumes, buy the right makeup and props, etc.
Like so many things, how you view new technology depends on your perspective. AI is just another tool for artists, like using a camera, pencil, paint, or PS, Procreate, etc. And, like lost things…it also has a dark side, as can be seen by glancing through what’s being created. In a few years it will be hard to tell what photograph is real. Artists should be honest enough to notate if they used AI to help generate a particular work of art/photograph.
If you believe that AI produces art it is because there must be Martians living among us.
I agree with you. There is no denying that the photography industry is in decline or in a period of stagnation. What I think though is that the industry will not die completely, but it will become a niche market. Think about audio - though not similar but comparing photography and audio is accurate. Right now, vinyl record players made a comeback of some sorts for the past decade, and the market is growing although not making a dent in the music industry. Photography (done with film, mirrorless cameras or dslr) will still be around in the near future but it will not be representative of the prevailing market trend - which is mass market mobile smartphone photography.
A lot of comments are missing the fact that many of these databases work by having "farmed" work previously posted on the internet. A lot of artists and designers have had their copyright infringed to make these AI systems work.
On another point - with all the other problems that AI could have made a real difference to - solving energy crisis / designing better medicines / capturing the genetic code of food crops so as to beat pests - many of the software geniuses instead chose to design a system to steal and copy art. Crazy.
One of the scary things I’ve seen in many years, and sadly, I probably agree. I’ve been a pro photographer for 45 years, specializing in fashion for much of that. For the past five years I’ve been seeing similar things regarding AI software being developed so designers and retailers can “shoot” their garments with a computer - no more photographer, model, stylist, makeup, hair - just a mouse and stylus and the software. With the latest developments, not even landscape photography seems “safe”.
Wow! You've been shooting professionally for 45 years? I'm sure that you've got a lot of stories the world would love to hear!
40 years in the photography business I’m down . Moving on to next chapter. Good luck everyone staying in .
At this stage as a photographer I'm looking at going to 35mm film, as at least it's real, and you can give the negative with a print as proof that it's human. That it has artistic human connection/empathy and real value.
I actually feel like governments should block this AI art development around the world. It's not helping people in any sense having this tech in existence weather art or trust down the line, who is this for?
Deep Fakes are already a problem. They can be used politically with huge repurcussions.
Love the way you delivered the content. Awesome
A large part involves the end value. Tradionally it was prints. Now it's more the online value for private venues and events - the momentary value.
Sports and commercial photography have a different market from this.
Weddings, the classic market, baby and child photos, and family or company events mostly just want online digital images and never prints.
Phone images look good enough, when they are lucky, for online digital social media at PC and phone screen resolution. They would not print or enlarge so well. Yet the print value is down, and the instant online gratification to be the first is what carries the most consumer value today.
This is a big part of what decimated the SLR/DSLR pro photographer and mfr markets.
The flipside will be the sheer lack of any image history in families over time. They just get lost or deleted. It's actually harder to keep digital images over time, than physical prints or film.
We Live to See Bro
Simply put, when someone needs to capture real life people and/or things they will need a photographer.
A restaurant that wants their own food to be photographed, a wedding, a event and so on. But this will surely take away a lot from photography. Specially bloggers will no longer need to pay for stock photos and other examples.
This could make life easier to commercial photographers in creating complex background and then they can just add the product on it