Fantastic reality check guys. As a software developer, I remember nearly twenty years ago updating in-house software to automate some tasks that one of the office girls was doing, and her saying to me "thank you so much, this is going to save me SO much time!", while I felt horrible because I was pretty sure it meant she was no longer needed. The scale of that to what's happening now is infinitely larger, and so is the scariness. The very idea of 'robots' giving humans free time to pursue their dreams is likely just a bait and switch scam to lull working people into abject poverty.
Great topic and phenomenal approach and perspective on this topic. I see many photographers in social media groups who are discounting AI because it's not perfect today. They're going to be caught off guard before they know it. Best to tackle disruptive technology head on and not hide from it. Embrace it, leverage it, get ahead of it. This is one of you most relevant videos ever. Great job both of you!
Definitely a scary time. Speaking as a wedding photographer, I think it'll go something like this: 1) Photography work in other genres will die in the next 2 years. 2) Many of these photographers will transition to wedding photography, saturating the workforce. This and the rise of AI batch editing software drives prices way down. 3) In the next 5-10 years AI editing software will shift from a photographer's tool to a client's tool -- i.e. photographers will provide RAW photos to clients and clients will run it through the software, getting to select different editing styles for a whole gallery at a click of a button (honestly, I fear this may happen even sooner, like in the next 2 years). 4) In 10 or so years, a "photographer" will set up a number of 360 type cameras, and maybe some lighting, around the venue which will record nonstop, then an AI program will process a photo gallery and wedding video from the data. I assume videography will hold out a few years longer, but ultimately share the same fate. I assume a very small niche market of AI-free photography/videography will exist, but I imagine it'll be just that -- a niche.
Your number 3 is exactly a crucial point. The saturation of user-side Ai will be AWESOME for consumers. Big trouble for producers. Imagine a TV or computer that adjusts colors based on ambient light - even more effective than tru-tone or warming after dusk. Personalized colors, volumes, color science, etc. we already have clients who have preferred angles and sides, surely they’ll have preferred filters, online avatars, and so much more.
I'll prefice this by saying, yes I'm scared of how powerful AI already is. GPT 4 is already quite terrifying! A glimmer of hope is the AI-detecting software is getting pretty good at detecting AI generated content. If you use AI to generate your blog, there is a good chance at some point Google will ban or plummet your ranking because it detects it isn't a real person writing the content. Google is investing heavily in AI detection. I'm not stupid enough to say as a wedding photographer I'm safe. I wonder how long before the clients will want the unedited RAW files on the same day, so they can run their own AI filter to have the photos exactly how they want them?
Great points! I'm personally already using a lot of Ai to help outline and generate content, especially when I'm standing things up for the first time, like website dummy data, etc. I do wonder how the two systems will battle each other. If one system is optimized to detect, and the other system is optimized to disguise - I wonder who will ultimately win? lol!
Not all photography industries and businesses thrive off of human connection, authenticity, or creativity. Simply put those people will struggle to keep their job. However human connection, authenticity, and creativity, are powerful reasons people can choose to do business with you, and if you pivot to being more custom service/luxury based, you’re not going to be replaced by AI. As always, staying ahead of the direction of your industry is how you stand out and stay afloat! It’s good you are covering this topic.
(Rob here) I agree that the more the niche depends on humanity and connection, the more insulated it is from AI affecting the position. However, there’s still a threat to those industries. When automation permeates the front and back end of the service, the pricing of the service will ultimately come down. With that photographers will potentially have to increase their sessions to maintain their earnings, decreasing the demand per photographer. Also, as photographers are pushed out of humanity-lacking roles, many will attempt to pivot to where work still exists, further increasing the demand issue. As always, some will maintain, others will blossom with these changes, but I don’t see any scenario where this leads to growth in our industry for the masses.
Really excited to share even more about this new tech. I think (read: hope) humanity is valued over the inhuman. I am exceedingly interested in monitoring that, though. Especially since the inhuman is getting trained -specifically- to mimic the human. Curious how long we all have.
I don't think the general public getting desensitized to professional looking images/art gets talked about enough. Before it took knowledge, time, timing and skill to create professional level art. Now it takes 3 seconds and people are being exposed to it by the second via social media. And mix in the advancement of phone quality.
This is true! The effort it takes to produce a quality image has been reduced by 1000 so now the frequency at which people see them (paired with increase of web usage) is up by an even greater number. This makes it more difficult to stand out, by orders of magnitude.
Yeah, 100% You almost have to intentionally avoid high quality photography now. The technical hurdles to create or own a professional photograph are diminishing - quickly!
The best way to earn a living in photography is to focus on the periphery. Use your photos for ebooks, postcards, maps, website design, illustrations, etc.
Great point. I call these intersections. Where does my photography intersect another passion or profit? Those intersections make the work valuable to both myself, and my clients.
It's relevant to suggest that most headshot work under the $500 threshold is going to go to AI, I guess the upside is we will never get another influencer asking us to photograph them for photo credit
as Professional Photographer since 20 years (and former 3D Artist) mainly involved in product photography and commercial, it's time to move away from Photography. in 1/2 years commercial/portrait/fashion photographer will be extinct, learning how to use AI tools can give you 1 or 2 years more in the best case, but these tools are aimed to final users, not at professional. switching or adding video (as i already do) may be can give you or 2/3/4 years of survive, in a super crowed market. the same or worst if you work as creative/designer/storyboarder. if you have a good network and skills you can try to switch to art/fineart photography and hope to sell something, or switch to event/wedding (but again, crowed area, and personally i don't like that much to work with public). i already stopped investing in photography. i updated all my studio last year and i will keep till it will survive. it's time to invest in differents sectors. may be a snack. :D
Imagine working for a camera company, or a lighting company or anyone who sells materials to the trade. They would have to start thinking about why they even bother to create anything new. If there wasn't already, they should start to think why bother.
@@jamesbruce don't think so. live events/sport and even cinema still have long life ahead. and anyways they can convert production to other kind of lighting or technical stuff. but storyboarder/ commercial photographers and similar, today feel like a phone cabin in 1995 :D
Absolutely agree with a lot of your points. The main point is this stuff is just in it's infancy as you mentioned. I don't think any of us can foresee the advancements that will be made in the next 5 years. I'm sure there were a lot of skeptics with the "horseless carriage" and the transition to digital photography versus film too.
haha, let us know if there's anything we can dive into further! We went down some pretty gnarly rabbit holes in the full conversation. I'd love to explore some popular topics if you have any requests!
re: authenticity.... for MANY purposes that don't require authenticity (journalism, law, science, etc.) determining autheniticity may not be important.....
Just as digital flipped the photo world upside down, creating many photographers, who really were not, and the many pros who left the industry...not to mention the near extinction of film, AI will figuratively kill the photographers. By being able to interpret and create images based on given information and seeing what it can do already, I'm sure it is more than possible at this juncture for AI images to be created and as we know, cost over creativity will dictate how a company wants to spend its ad budget.
I retired from photography two years ago. Started shooting in 1980 editorial and advertising. I saw what digital did to the industry rates. I made a lot more money shooting with E6 and C41 film. We were able to mark up film, Polaroid and processing, equipment rental and assistants. I got paid more in the 80’s for editorial photography than I did in 2019. Now it’s a flat rate and they want you to retouch their selects. I am glad I am out of the industry. Would I do it again. I would have to say no in today’s environment.
All of this AI talk reminds me of the Y2K end of the world talk 23 years ago. I don't think it's the end of the road for any branch of photography just yet. Yes, smaller ad/pr agencies will love to be able to ditch the photographer (and all of the related crew) and do it all in house. The bigger companies have been generating product shots for some time now...I know, because for the last 7 or more years I've been sent files from several big players that were obviously 100% digitally created (bottles, packaging, etc.). If anything, with the new push towards generating humans, I would think that it's the modeling agencies that need to worry the most! I bet the people that will make use of these AI apps are the same folks that are currently using selfies for their business portraits, real estate listing photos and crappy restaurant menus, the same folks that wouldn't dream of hiring a photographer (or even using a cheapo service like Snappr). IMO, the best words you can hear from a client is "I'm not a good photographer", because they appreciate the craft. I'm sure it's going to be a bumpy ride, but don't run off screaming into the woods yet!!!
Y2K was end of world talk. This is talk about how jobs will be lost. Its a long time coming. Automation and AI is real and has already started replacing jobs but with photography it can generate images or edit images for people without photographers. People can save a lot of money.
Thanks for the topic. It is not just the issue of photography jobs. What happens when millions of people have nothing meaningful to do? The more people use the services the faster it advances.
The comment about riding the wave is difficult to do, because the wave is becoming so short. What is true today about AI today will be obsolete in 24 hrs. Good luck to all.
I think everyone needs to take a deep breath and start thinking more laterally, and less linearly about all of this. I wouldn't be so quick to eulogize photography. Yes, certain types of commercial photography are going to take a massive hit, such as product photography, low -to-mid-level portraiture, and catalogue look books. However, high-end commercial work will be fine, at least for the foreseeable future (e.g. Annie Leibovitz isn't going to be put out of work anytime soon). But here's where it's important to see things in a larger context > documentation of real world events; the increasingly critical need for image authenticity across all sectors (this alone will rapidly become a massive, multi-pronged societal, sociological and cultural hurdle for AI); the fact that entirely AI-generated images cannot be copyrighted (rendering them worthless as revenue-generating IP); the necessity for fresh real-world photography to sublimate AI from simply making repeated copies of its own copies; and the subconscious human preference for attaching more "value" to the toil of human-made art, are but a few of the reasons that photography won't die anytime soon.
I think there will always be people who just want to buy a product for as little as possible. Then there are people who want and value the experience. So there's a market for both, in my humble opinion. I think it'll force a lot of people to step up or step out of the industry. Is that a bad thing? Maybe? Maybe not.
That’s (step up or step out) a good way to put it. Ever since I’ve been in this industry (~13 years), I feel a large portion of photographers have complained about the oversaturation of participants in our industry. Maybe this will be the thing that pushes all the lower tier photographers out, creating more healthy levels between supply and demand.
Software benefits often begin with doing faster and move on to doing things that was once impossible due to certain constraints. Lastly, do something that never have dreamed of previously. As well, many people talked about jobs as they were in the Industrial era that could last a lifetime, without many major changes and ample time to adapt. Also, many photographers who have begun their journeys during the digital era and didn't think much about the similar headaches experienced by the film photographers back then during the transition, are now experiencing it first hand. While digital shortening the time to become proficient, but future technology can shorten it further more. The same principle will apply with each new technology and speeding up changes too. To sync with the any waves, outsiders from the technology can choose to become users or power users, benefitting from what I called the first stage of benefits, doing things faster. The second stage of benefits is liked wedding photographers start thinking about partnering with some 'Unreal Engine' & AI experts to offer 3D animation as part of their service. Using it as a competitive advantage over those who still talks about 4K videos with tons of B-rolls. It is important to note that it isn't about a new product or service but a different mindset to better position ourselves as a professional, instead of a mere power user. Furthermore, it is an example of the Star Trek's Kobayashi Maru Scenario. No longer a battle between who will become more tech savvy with AI & any other future technology, but who has a better strategical mind or being more business savvy. Of course, the age old argument about Art vs. Science. Are photographers real artists? I bet some probably cannot even draw a line straight and painters are among the first group of benefactors of AI. They probably use AI as their canvas and out smart the early AI with human creativity. As for the rest, remember the old saying, Artists Died Penniless such as Van Gogh. Therefore, it was most likely that the successful old timers were good at picking their clients' pockets and adapted, as well as good with photography. If it isn't business related, then who cares. We can choose to continue shooting with wet plates, film, digital or whatever. 🙂
Soon we will have AI presenters with Ai scripts, that push whatever narrative they want which will be reinforce by Ai video. The scary part about it is there is not stopping it.
90% reduction in two years. And the remaining grounds get very very crowded (and therefore too cheap to make a living off) since all photographers who lost their income try to switch to the few remaining areas such as wedding photography, may be...
The one thing I will say on this. Where I live (rural UK) 90% of photographers who make a living from photography are already wedding photographers. There is very little work outside of this field other than portraits. I do travel to London for corporate work and that may / will get affected like you say. One thing I have found with corporate clients is they do not like change. If they like your work and you offer a good service at a good price, they will use you over and over again. Still a worrying time and the biggest change since digital cameras came on the market.
What an interesting/scary time to be alive. I don’t think I imagined a time when photography can be so democratized that you don’t even need a camera 😅 i agree that authenticity isn’t really much of a draw for photography vs AI anymore since filters have normalized it so much, I mean even headshots can be retouched so much that there’s really no difference as to whether the person was even there to begin with. Great discussion!
Levis experienced very strong backlash, and cancelled their plans. Also, fashion is not sold to many people in that practical no-nonsense way that your basic t-shirt wearing guest seems to imagine. For many fashion brands, the fantasy and the poetry is the point. I think you guys don't seem to really have a very far reaching grasp of this and other points.
Really interest debates there, thank you for sharing your perspectives and would concur on all scoring discuss from a hobbist looking in perspective :)
I reckon the boudoir niche is probably the safest of the “commemorative” portraits category. I feel out of any commerce studio portrait, boudoir requires some of the most complex aspects of humanity. You have to make clients relaxed in a vulnerable state, empower them, and have them feel secure throughout the entire process. And if we looked at AI when it comes to showing skin, there’s multiple hangups. People would be far less likely to upload the necessary “data” for AI to produce boudoir images (if we were comparing vs something like headshot pro). Additionally some image generators are avoiding that area of images entirely to prevent nefarious use.
What about other Photography areas? For example Fashion Photographers. By now the only thing that kept fashion photographers still in a good place was the scarcity of production resources, like good stylists, clothes and creativity. But now most brands will try to use AI tools in the next years to come. Advertising photography will be hard too. What do you think?
I don't think the public will accept this. It's been decades since photoshop could seriously skew the appearance of a model, and yet real people with real specific looks continue to get hired because they are people that the public likes to know are real and vicariously live through.
I don't understand... you still need a camera at the wedding... You can't just put robots in there and expect great results. Humans can move, take decisions and be quick to judge a photo op, drop on their knee in a heartbeat, navigate through a tightly packed crowd unlike that tripod thing... And who selects the photos? And where are those self-driving cars we kept hearing about? How's that going? Isn't that also a promise of AI that was supposed to change everything? And for a corporate headshot job... those AI things, are they consistent? If you get 80 photos for ONE person, which one do you choose? Imagine there are 20 employees to shoot, will AI provide consistent and predictable results? Then you have to dig through 1600 photos and hope they are consistent. WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT? But if they are not consistent, how does that represent the company? I guarantee there is still an art director taking decisions at big corporations, and getting the results you want from AI may just as well turn out to be more of a nightmare and super frustrating because there is nothing in front of you to direct, concretely. But, none of this talk seems to come from experience, just predictions out of thin air. It would be interesting to get an art director's experience. AI is a buzzword. Big corporations like buzz words. Now everyone's watching what these corporations will come up with. That, is the marketing they are looking for.
I can see a lot of poor wedding photographers using AI to generate a portfolio . Ultimately couples will end up disappointed but by then it's too late. I can also see couples uploading their photos to sites to have AI change their photos. Will photographers have a clause in their contract to stop this and if they do, will that restrict bookings. Very good video by the way.
I’ve seen some examples of Ai passing off as portfolio. I personally have been using Ai to plan larger shoots and looks, but to pass off Ai as your wedding port. Bold move 😂
The real issue is that if an AIK can replicate anyone's work, then anyone can take the photos, and as long as they are OK, AI can make it look like a really talented photog took the images.
@@BudJohnson Is it any different to using stock images on a website or photos they did not take. This does happen and with AI they will be able to say, I made them. I think the most likely thing to happen is photographers using AI to improve their portfolio. If companies charge $30 per image it will not be profitable to Ai the whole wedding. Interesting times ahead and certainly the biggest development in photography since the DSLR
The part of all this I can't stand is so called photographers posting Ai images on Instagram, Facebook, Vero etc and claiming it to be their work. Its just insulting peoples intelligence when some of these images look straight out of Toy Story 3 ! It's only going to get worse as people with zero creativity realize what they can now create.
Fantastic reality check guys. As a software developer, I remember nearly twenty years ago updating in-house software to automate some tasks that one of the office girls was doing, and her saying to me "thank you so much, this is going to save me SO much time!", while I felt horrible because I was pretty sure it meant she was no longer needed. The scale of that to what's happening now is infinitely larger, and so is the scariness. The very idea of 'robots' giving humans free time to pursue their dreams is likely just a bait and switch scam to lull working people into abject poverty.
Great topic and phenomenal approach and perspective on this topic. I see many photographers in social media groups who are discounting AI because it's not perfect today. They're going to be caught off guard before they know it.
Best to tackle disruptive technology head on and not hide from it. Embrace it, leverage it, get ahead of it.
This is one of you most relevant videos ever. Great job both of you!
Definitely a scary time. Speaking as a wedding photographer, I think it'll go something like this: 1) Photography work in other genres will die in the next 2 years. 2) Many of these photographers will transition to wedding photography, saturating the workforce. This and the rise of AI batch editing software drives prices way down. 3) In the next 5-10 years AI editing software will shift from a photographer's tool to a client's tool -- i.e. photographers will provide RAW photos to clients and clients will run it through the software, getting to select different editing styles for a whole gallery at a click of a button (honestly, I fear this may happen even sooner, like in the next 2 years). 4) In 10 or so years, a "photographer" will set up a number of 360 type cameras, and maybe some lighting, around the venue which will record nonstop, then an AI program will process a photo gallery and wedding video from the data.
I assume videography will hold out a few years longer, but ultimately share the same fate. I assume a very small niche market of AI-free photography/videography will exist, but I imagine it'll be just that -- a niche.
Your number 3 is exactly a crucial point. The saturation of user-side Ai will be AWESOME for consumers. Big trouble for producers.
Imagine a TV or computer that adjusts colors based on ambient light - even more effective than tru-tone or warming after dusk.
Personalized colors, volumes, color science, etc.
we already have clients who have preferred angles and sides, surely they’ll have preferred filters, online avatars, and so much more.
"1) Photography work in other genres will die in the next 2 years."
Not gonna happen.
Eeeekkk!! I'm so pumped about this!! Amazing conversation!! 🤩
I'll prefice this by saying, yes I'm scared of how powerful AI already is. GPT 4 is already quite terrifying!
A glimmer of hope is the AI-detecting software is getting pretty good at detecting AI generated content. If you use AI to generate your blog, there is a good chance at some point Google will ban or plummet your ranking because it detects it isn't a real person writing the content. Google is investing heavily in AI detection.
I'm not stupid enough to say as a wedding photographer I'm safe. I wonder how long before the clients will want the unedited RAW files on the same day, so they can run their own AI filter to have the photos exactly how they want them?
Great points! I'm personally already using a lot of Ai to help outline and generate content, especially when I'm standing things up for the first time, like website dummy data, etc. I do wonder how the two systems will battle each other. If one system is optimized to detect, and the other system is optimized to disguise - I wonder who will ultimately win? lol!
Not all photography industries and businesses thrive off of human connection, authenticity, or creativity. Simply put those people will struggle to keep their job.
However human connection, authenticity, and creativity, are powerful reasons people can choose to do business with you, and if you pivot to being more custom service/luxury based, you’re not going to be replaced by AI.
As always, staying ahead of the direction of your industry is how you stand out and stay afloat! It’s good you are covering this topic.
(Rob here) I agree that the more the niche depends on humanity and connection, the more insulated it is from AI affecting the position. However, there’s still a threat to those industries.
When automation permeates the front and back end of the service, the pricing of the service will ultimately come down. With that photographers will potentially have to increase their sessions to maintain their earnings, decreasing the demand per photographer.
Also, as photographers are pushed out of humanity-lacking roles, many will attempt to pivot to where work still exists, further increasing the demand issue.
As always, some will maintain, others will blossom with these changes, but I don’t see any scenario where this leads to growth in our industry for the masses.
Really excited to share even more about this new tech.
I think (read: hope) humanity is valued over the inhuman. I am exceedingly interested in monitoring that, though. Especially since the inhuman is getting trained -specifically- to mimic the human.
Curious how long we all have.
I don't think the general public getting desensitized to professional looking images/art gets talked about enough. Before it took knowledge, time, timing and skill to create professional level art. Now it takes 3 seconds and people are being exposed to it by the second via social media.
And mix in the advancement of phone quality.
This is true! The effort it takes to produce a quality image has been reduced by 1000 so now the frequency at which people see them (paired with increase of web usage) is up by an even greater number. This makes it more difficult to stand out, by orders of magnitude.
Yeah, 100% You almost have to intentionally avoid high quality photography now. The technical hurdles to create or own a professional photograph are diminishing - quickly!
The best way to earn a living in photography is to focus on the periphery. Use your photos for ebooks, postcards, maps, website design, illustrations, etc.
Great point. I call these intersections. Where does my photography intersect another passion or profit? Those intersections make the work valuable to both myself, and my clients.
It's relevant to suggest that most headshot work under the $500 threshold is going to go to AI,
I guess the upside is we will never get another influencer asking us to photograph them for photo credit
next video idea : where to pivot if you're a pro affected by this.
We definitely plan to cover both pivots and integrations to help people navigate this as it develops!
as Professional Photographer since 20 years (and former 3D Artist) mainly involved in product photography and commercial, it's time to move away from Photography. in 1/2 years commercial/portrait/fashion photographer will be extinct, learning how to use AI tools can give you 1 or 2 years more in the best case, but these tools are aimed to final users, not at professional. switching or adding video (as i already do) may be can give you or 2/3/4 years of survive, in a super crowed market. the same or worst if you work as creative/designer/storyboarder. if you have a good network and skills you can try to switch to art/fineart photography and hope to sell something, or switch to event/wedding (but again, crowed area, and personally i don't like that much to work with public). i already stopped investing in photography. i updated all my studio last year and i will keep till it will survive. it's time to invest in differents sectors. may be a snack. :D
Same here...
Imagine working for a camera company, or a lighting company or anyone who sells materials to the trade. They would have to start thinking about why they even bother to create anything new. If there wasn't already, they should start to think why bother.
@@jamesbruce don't think so. live events/sport and even cinema still have long life ahead. and anyways they can convert production to other kind of lighting or technical stuff. but storyboarder/ commercial photographers and similar, today feel like a phone cabin in 1995 :D
Absolutely agree with a lot of your points. The main point is this stuff is just in it's infancy as you mentioned. I don't think any of us can foresee the advancements that will be made in the next 5 years. I'm sure there were a lot of skeptics with the "horseless carriage" and the transition to digital photography versus film too.
Definitely need to watch this one a couple of times with pen in hand. Thanks for having this convo, gents.
There’s so many jump cuts cause I was taking so many notes 😩
haha, let us know if there's anything we can dive into further! We went down some pretty gnarly rabbit holes in the full conversation. I'd love to explore some popular topics if you have any requests!
@@BudJohnson Thanks so much! Appreciate you both!
re: authenticity.... for MANY purposes that don't require authenticity (journalism, law, science, etc.) determining autheniticity may not be important.....
Just as digital flipped the photo world upside down, creating many photographers, who really were not, and the many pros who left the industry...not to mention the near extinction of film, AI will figuratively kill the photographers. By being able to interpret and create images based on given information and seeing what it can do already, I'm sure it is more than possible at this juncture for AI images to be created and as we know, cost over creativity will dictate how a company wants to spend its ad budget.
I retired from photography two years ago. Started shooting in 1980 editorial and advertising. I saw what digital did to the industry rates. I made a lot more money shooting with E6 and C41 film. We were able to mark up film, Polaroid and processing, equipment rental and assistants. I got paid more in the 80’s for editorial photography than I did in 2019. Now it’s a flat rate and they want you to retouch their selects. I am glad I am out of the industry. Would I do it again. I would have to say no in today’s environment.
All of this AI talk reminds me of the Y2K end of the world talk 23 years ago. I don't think it's the end of the road for any branch of photography just yet. Yes, smaller ad/pr agencies will love to be able to ditch the photographer (and all of the related crew) and do it all in house. The bigger companies have been generating product shots for some time now...I know, because for the last 7 or more years I've been sent files from several big players that were obviously 100% digitally created (bottles, packaging, etc.).
If anything, with the new push towards generating humans, I would think that it's the modeling agencies that need to worry the most!
I bet the people that will make use of these AI apps are the same folks that are currently using selfies for their business portraits, real estate listing photos and crappy restaurant menus, the same folks that wouldn't dream of hiring a photographer (or even using a cheapo service like Snappr).
IMO, the best words you can hear from a client is "I'm not a good photographer", because they appreciate the craft.
I'm sure it's going to be a bumpy ride, but don't run off screaming into the woods yet!!!
Y2K was end of world talk. This is talk about how jobs will be lost. Its a long time coming. Automation and AI is real and has already started replacing jobs but with photography it can generate images or edit images for people without photographers. People can save a lot of money.
Headshot Pro's service was comically poor in execution compared to the marketing examples on the site, but it won't be long before it's there.
Eye-opening. Thanks for sharing.
So what are your recomendations for headshot photographers?
Thanks for the topic. It is not just the issue of photography jobs. What happens when millions of people have nothing meaningful to do? The more people use the services the faster it advances.
The comment about riding the wave is difficult to do, because the wave is becoming so short. What is true today about AI today will be obsolete in 24 hrs. Good luck to all.
I think everyone needs to take a deep breath and start thinking more laterally, and less linearly about all of this. I wouldn't be so quick to eulogize photography. Yes, certain types of commercial photography are going to take a massive hit, such as product photography, low -to-mid-level portraiture, and catalogue look books. However, high-end commercial work will be fine, at least for the foreseeable future (e.g. Annie Leibovitz isn't going to be put out of work anytime soon).
But here's where it's important to see things in a larger context > documentation of real world events; the increasingly critical need for image authenticity across all sectors (this alone will rapidly become a massive, multi-pronged societal, sociological and cultural hurdle for AI); the fact that entirely AI-generated images cannot be copyrighted (rendering them worthless as revenue-generating IP); the necessity for fresh real-world photography to sublimate AI from simply making repeated copies of its own copies; and the subconscious human preference for attaching more "value" to the toil of human-made art, are but a few of the reasons that photography won't die anytime soon.
I think there will always be people who just want to buy a product for as little as possible. Then there are people who want and value the experience. So there's a market for both, in my humble opinion. I think it'll force a lot of people to step up or step out of the industry. Is that a bad thing? Maybe? Maybe not.
That’s (step up or step out) a good way to put it. Ever since I’ve been in this industry (~13 years), I feel a large portion of photographers have complained about the oversaturation of participants in our industry. Maybe this will be the thing that pushes all the lower tier photographers out, creating more healthy levels between supply and demand.
Software benefits often begin with doing faster and move on to doing things that was once impossible due to certain constraints. Lastly, do something that never have dreamed of previously.
As well, many people talked about jobs as they were in the Industrial era that could last a lifetime, without many major changes and ample time to adapt. Also, many photographers who have begun their journeys during the digital era and didn't think much about the similar headaches experienced by the film photographers back then during the transition, are now experiencing it first hand.
While digital shortening the time to become proficient, but future technology can shorten it further more. The same principle will apply with each new technology and speeding up changes too. To sync with the any waves, outsiders from the technology can choose to become users or power users, benefitting from what I called the first stage of benefits, doing things faster.
The second stage of benefits is liked wedding photographers start thinking about partnering with some 'Unreal Engine' & AI experts to offer 3D animation as part of their service. Using it as a competitive advantage over those who still talks about 4K videos with tons of B-rolls.
It is important to note that it isn't about a new product or service but a different mindset to better position ourselves as a professional, instead of a mere power user. Furthermore, it is an example of the Star Trek's Kobayashi Maru Scenario. No longer a battle between who will become more tech savvy with AI & any other future technology, but who has a better strategical mind or being more business savvy.
Of course, the age old argument about Art vs. Science. Are photographers real artists? I bet some probably cannot even draw a line straight and painters are among the first group of benefactors of AI. They probably use AI as their canvas and out smart the early AI with human creativity. As for the rest, remember the old saying, Artists Died Penniless such as Van Gogh. Therefore, it was most likely that the successful old timers were good at picking their clients' pockets and adapted, as well as good with photography.
If it isn't business related, then who cares. We can choose to continue shooting with wet plates, film, digital or whatever. 🙂
Soon we will have AI presenters with Ai scripts, that push whatever narrative they want which will be reinforce by Ai video. The scary part about it is there is not stopping it.
I wonder how long that practice has already been going on, maybe we’re just now noticing or it’s just now getting decentralized enough 🤷♂️
90% reduction in two years. And the remaining grounds get very very crowded (and therefore too cheap to make a living off) since all photographers who lost their income try to switch to the few remaining areas such as wedding photography, may be...
That's a good point - do you think this will result in photographers kinda homogenizing into wedding or event photography en masse?
The one thing I will say on this. Where I live (rural UK) 90% of photographers who make a living from photography are already wedding photographers. There is very little work outside of this field other than portraits. I do travel to London for corporate work and that may / will get affected like you say. One thing I have found with corporate clients is they do not like change. If they like your work and you offer a good service at a good price, they will use you over and over again. Still a worrying time and the biggest change since digital cameras came on the market.
What an interesting/scary time to be alive. I don’t think I imagined a time when photography can be so democratized that you don’t even need a camera 😅 i agree that authenticity isn’t really much of a draw for photography vs AI anymore since filters have normalized it so much, I mean even headshots can be retouched so much that there’s really no difference as to whether the person was even there to begin with. Great discussion!
Levis experienced very strong backlash, and cancelled their plans. Also, fashion is not sold to many people in that practical no-nonsense way that your basic t-shirt wearing guest seems to imagine. For many fashion brands, the fantasy and the poetry is the point. I think you guys don't seem to really have a very far reaching grasp of this and other points.
Really interest debates there, thank you for sharing your perspectives and would concur on all scoring discuss from a hobbist looking in perspective :)
Really interesting times for the hobbyist photographer right now! Thanks for listening!
What about boudoir photography. How would you rate its life ?
I reckon the boudoir niche is probably the safest of the “commemorative” portraits category. I feel out of any commerce studio portrait, boudoir requires some of the most complex aspects of humanity. You have to make clients relaxed in a vulnerable state, empower them, and have them feel secure throughout the entire process.
And if we looked at AI when it comes to showing skin, there’s multiple hangups. People would be far less likely to upload the necessary “data” for AI to produce boudoir images (if we were comparing vs something like headshot pro). Additionally some image generators are avoiding that area of images entirely to prevent nefarious use.
What about other Photography areas? For example Fashion Photographers. By now the only thing that kept fashion photographers still in a good place was the scarcity of production resources, like good stylists, clothes and creativity. But now most brands will try to use AI tools in the next years to come. Advertising photography will be hard too. What do you think?
I don't think the public will accept this. It's been decades since photoshop could seriously skew the appearance of a model, and yet real people with real specific looks continue to get hired because they are people that the public likes to know are real and vicariously live through.
100% surviving and striving
Good for you. Not to plant fear, buy AI just started at significant level. So we will see
Awesome! Keep kickin' butt!
I don't understand... you still need a camera at the wedding... You can't just put robots in there and expect great results. Humans can move, take decisions and be quick to judge a photo op, drop on their knee in a heartbeat, navigate through a tightly packed crowd unlike that tripod thing... And who selects the photos? And where are those self-driving cars we kept hearing about? How's that going? Isn't that also a promise of AI that was supposed to change everything? And for a corporate headshot job... those AI things, are they consistent? If you get 80 photos for ONE person, which one do you choose? Imagine there are 20 employees to shoot, will AI provide consistent and predictable results? Then you have to dig through 1600 photos and hope they are consistent. WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT? But if they are not consistent, how does that represent the company? I guarantee there is still an art director taking decisions at big corporations, and getting the results you want from AI may just as well turn out to be more of a nightmare and super frustrating because there is nothing in front of you to direct, concretely. But, none of this talk seems to come from experience, just predictions out of thin air. It would be interesting to get an art director's experience. AI is a buzzword. Big corporations like buzz words. Now everyone's watching what these corporations will come up with. That, is the marketing they are looking for.
I can see a lot of poor wedding photographers using AI to generate a portfolio . Ultimately couples will end up disappointed but by then it's too late. I can also see couples uploading their photos to sites to have AI change their photos. Will photographers have a clause in their contract to stop this and if they do, will that restrict bookings. Very good video by the way.
I’ve seen some examples of Ai passing off as portfolio.
I personally have been using Ai to plan larger shoots and looks, but to pass off Ai as your wedding port.
Bold move 😂
The real issue is that if an AIK can replicate anyone's work, then anyone can take the photos, and as long as they are OK, AI can make it look like a really talented photog took the images.
@@BudJohnson Is it any different to using stock images on a website or photos they did not take. This does happen and with AI they will be able to say, I made them. I think the most likely thing to happen is photographers using AI to improve their portfolio. If companies charge $30 per image it will not be profitable to Ai the whole wedding. Interesting times ahead and certainly the biggest development in photography since the DSLR
Photography will always be around especially for special occasions. Great video 👌
I'm one of those photographers that held onto film waaaay longer than most of my colleagues and peers - so I totally get this vibe!
I agree, it just might not be humans capturing it.
The part of all this I can't stand is so called photographers posting Ai images on Instagram, Facebook, Vero etc and claiming it to be their work. Its just insulting peoples intelligence when some of these images look straight out of Toy Story 3 ! It's only going to get worse as people with zero creativity realize what they can now create.
Yeah, words mean things. And the words “photography work” and “photography portfolio” are definitely changing before our eyes!
An awful lot of wishful thinking going on here...... Probable a bit like other industries that have long since virtually disappeared....
Promoting diversity by using fake people? Sorry, but that made me laugh