Artificial Intelligence 2

Yesterday I wrote about the AI program MidJourney generating images based upon the criteria ‘Bruce Percy Photography’.

I thought I would show some more, which were created by the criteria ‘Bruce Percy Photography Bolivia’.

I can definitely see elements of some of the places I have visited in Bolivia. The top left image in particular reminds me a lot of the mountains near the Dalí desert.

Tonight I’ve been thinking that this all reminds me of something. And I’ve just realised it reminds me of when HDR came out. Many thought it would be a fad. As much as I know that HDR work can be subtle, masterful, and invisible in the final image when in the hands of a skilled operator, it can also be extremely gaudy (to my tastes at least anyway) when used with much less regard for restraint and taste. Regardless of whether I approve or not, HDR is here to stay.

And so with the AI generated images from Midjourney, I think we are seeing the birth of something new here. There will be those that use AI image generation with sophistication, and those that don’t. We now live in a world where anyone can publish, and I often feel I have to curate what I spend my time looking at. There is an awful lot of derivative work out there, and to find the jewels of work that are being published, one has to work harder to find them.

So for me, as much as I’m fascinated by this new advancement in AI, perhaps more from a sociological perspective (jobs are going to be lost and also won, because this is a massive paradigm shift we are on the cusp of), I don’t see the algorithms at present giving you an option for the level of taste in the work. When I went onto MidJourney to look at other work, everything had a similar kind of saccharine look to it.

But I must warn that this is only temporary. If you are not up to speed on AI and where it is headed, then I can recommend this article on the Wait but Why website. In it, the writer explains that progress and developments in AI are exponential. The Google scientist Ray Kursweil has said that progress is always exponential, but we humans tend to project into the future in a linear fashion. It is a human failing. We tend to assume that what has happened before is an indication of what will happen in the future. If the first year we learn 10%, we assume the second year will be a further 10%. But the truth is, that 10% you’ve learned, contributes towards you learning 30% the second year. And so on. Progress is exponential.

One has to move with the times, because if you don’t, you’ll be left behind. I am curious to know whether ‘real art’ generated by ‘real people’ will have a reverence over AI generate work, or whether folks simply won’t care. I don’t think they will be able to notice the difference, but that is another matter entirely. Because we still discuss the merits of different cameras, and yet I doubt if anyone could look at most photos and confidently claim to know which camera they were made with. My own belief is that when it comes down to the bottom line, convenience always wins. So AI will win over work that has been created by a human.

Where does that leave us in the future? Artist have seldom made money from their art, unless they are extremely lucky. Same for musicians. And book writers, only if they have a best selling book. But what if AI can generate a JK Rowling like sequel, and it does it in a matter of seconds, as opposed to JK Rowling writing a book for 2 years? There is no contest.

I digress perhaps. But I must stress that I am not warning of the perils of AI, or even saying I don’t like it. I am just curious how it is going to affect us. Because rather than us shape it, it will shape us.

Artificial Intelligence

A friend emailed me today to tell me that he had joined Midjourney. If you don’t know what Midjourney is, it is an AI application that can generate images based on user input.

Steve decided to type in ‘Bruce Percy photography’, and this is what it generated.

Apart from it looking a bit dream-like (which by the way, is one of my own intentions when creating images), I can see parallels, and similarities, even though it is not exactly like my own work.

I can’t get the software to work right now, as I believe they have hit their subscription limit.

Anyway, here are some other variations:

The last set in particular remind me of my photographs of Stac Pollaidh, here in Scotland.

But I have to ask the questions:

1) how long will it be, before this starts to look so convincingly like real photography, rather than some weird dream?

and perhaps more specifically:

2) how long before we have photographers publishing work created in these AI programs? How long before we see work that is so convincing that we don’t know if it’s a real photograph or AI?

For anyone out there who has a USP with their art, it does make me wonder how long before everyone is not far away from creating work just like theirs? I’m not trying to be all ‘doom’ about this. I am fascinated by the boundaries. Will we be able to spot an AI generated piece of art from a human created one? And if so, what will be the tells? I think it will get to the point where it will be impossible to do so.

So where does this end? What about music? What about books and stories?

Will the ‘art’ in creating anything, be about how you work with AI and use it, rather than just letting it create itself?

Quite intriguing.

Then Steve noticed it has also generate some portraits as well based on ‘Bruce Percy photography’. In case you aren’t aware, I have made portrait photos in the past. I haven’t done much in a long while, but I do have some portraits on this site if you go check. But here are Midjourney’s interpretations of my portraiture work:

Quite dreamy. They sort of remind me of Susan Burnstine’s imagery. More in the focussing, and blur techniques applied.

In the last set of pictures, the one that comes extremely close to my own work is the bottom left image. It is almost a mirror copy of one of the lochs in the Scottish highlands that I have photographed many times.

micrometeorites

I was watching a movie by Werner Herzog called ‘Fireball’, which is on Apple TV right now. In it, he met up with a scientist in Oslo who was using the rooftop of a local stadium as a catchment area for meteorites. But these meteorites are micro-meteorites. Tiny ‘space dust’ particles that he is able to hoover up with some magnets due to their iron compounds.

They are so small, that you’d think there would be nothing remarkable about them, as you can see in the photo of the finger.

But the scientists who’ve been collecting these micro-meteorites have been using some very high resolution photography to study them.

I found the photographs of them extremely beautiful.

I have no affiliation with the website where I got these images from. But it appears that you can buy these meteorites ! Anyway, if you’d like to go and view some more micro meteorites and see how they were found, you can visit the website treasuresfromspace.com.

I would also thoroughly recommend Werner Herzog’s movie ‘Fireball’. It’s on AppleTV.

Print storage and worktable

I was sorely needing a table where I can work on my prints, and also somewhere to store prints and art work I’ve produced.

This got me thinking about how many of us actually get something to store our prints in? I opted for an architect set of drawers. It’s rather large, but now that I have it set up, it’s just what I was looking for.

I think a studio of some kind is a complete luxury, but often not considered. How many of us are just editing our photographs on a laptop on the sofa? I have another desk with a permanent screen set up - an Eizo display alongside a daylight viewing booth, so I can review my prints against my monitor.

I appreciate this is a luxury for most. How many of us have the space, or a spare room to do this with? But I do think it’s something to consider. Especially if you print. Which I think all photographers should do.

Minimalism in the Icelandic Landscape

I’ve just published dates for an updated tour to Iceland in winter time. The trip focusses on shooting minimalist winter scapes in the Icelandic landscape.

Hotels & Comfort

Unlike the previous incarnation of this tour, we will be staying at a hotel situated on the very edge of this wilderness landscape. So private rooms, showers and a nice glass of wine in the evening :-)

If you love to shoot minimalist compositions, with black brush strokes on a white canvas, then this trip is for you.

During the week we will spend together, we will be based in a highland hotel, situated on the outskirts of the minimalist landscapes we aim to photograph.

The landscape is seldom the same. Snow conditions will vary which contributes to this being a trip of exploring. Each day we will venture out to see what we will find. If you are open minded and like to go with the flow, rather than follow a fixed itinerary, then this will be the trip for you.

April 12 - 18, 2023
Price: $5,495 USD
Deposit: $1,648 USD
7-Day Photographic Adventure

Print Buyer's Home settings

I love receiving emails from folks who’ve bought my prints. I love even more seeing my prints framed and in place in their homes.

Over the years I’ve had folks send me emails from all over the world with my prints hanging on the walls. Sometimes I’ve even seen them hanging right next to an Ansel Adams original (which is very complimentary).

I really like the arrangement for this collection. I love triptychs, and to me, single photographs aren’t what it’s really about. I’m much more interested in a cohesive theme, and a collection of three images that sit tightly next to one another is more important than having twenty good images that don’t fit as well.

Of course I’d like to sell more prints. But I’ll let you in on a secret: few amateur landscape photographers buy other people’s work.

But I think most amateurs should really fill their houses with their own work first, anyway. Printing and framing your own work is the final step to completing your work. It is also immensely satisfying to see the work reach another level when it is hanging on a wall. I have often thought that printing is nice, matting the print is nicer, and framing it is even nicer still. But nothing beats seeing the completed object hanging on a wall.

I’ll let you in on another secret: few photographers actually print any of their work.

The print is greatly undervalued in my opinion. We should print more, exhibit more, and also, when we have the spare cash, buy other’s work we admire.

In my own case, I have a couple of John Blakemore prints at home. A Michael Kenna (that’s another story), and a Charlie Cramer. I’d like to get some more in time.

Printing is where it’s at. When you print, you notice things in the hard copy that you didn’t notice on your monitor. It’s the final verification stage, and if you can get it to look great in print, it will always look great on a monitor. But the opposite is not true.

Anyway, thanks so much to Pete for sending me this photo. I get great satisfaction from seeing my work ‘complete’ - printed / matted / framed, and placed on a wall.

Gearing up for film processing

If you aren’t aware, or don’t follow me so much, then you probably don’t know that I’m 100% a film shooter. All the work on my website is film.

Around eight years ago, I ran into problems getting ‘good’ film processing done. I went through a series of labs which in my view were now cutting corners due to low demand for film processing. It’s hard to keep a lab optimised if it doesn’t have a continuous throughput of film to process. It’s also hard to keep a lab optimised if you’ve been shut down for almost two years like many other businesses have.

Since this January, I’ve had most of my films damaged by the lab I had trusted for many years. I have since begun to look into developing my own films in future, and last month I offered a set of prints on my site to help fund my processing lab.

You might be thinking ‘good luck with that Bruce, as I can imagine developing your own film will be very hard’. I can understand this. But I think most things are really about putting up with a learning curve. When I first decided I was going to try to learn to print my work myself, I put out some feelers on my blog to say ‘where do I start?’. There is just so much information out there, and most of it is not very good, or at best, contradictory in nature.

I had felt overwhelmed about learning to print myself, and I must admit that the same has been true about learning to process my own films. Since learning how to print though, it has given me a lot of freedom and confidence in what I’m doing. I trust my editing more as I know that my printing process shows up deficiencies in my work.

I know that being able to process my own films will be a hugely positive step forward. More control to myself. Besides, no one is as invested in your photography as you are. So best to do your processing yourself.

So last week I went round to visit my good friend Kyriakos Kalorkoti, to go through the E6 process with him again (he kindly showed me the process several years ago). We just used a small Jobo manual processor.

Manual processors are exactly as the name suggests - entirely manual. You have to take care of each step of the process (there are six processes in E6), with a water wash between each step, so there is in my view, chance of forgetting where you are, or missing out or even repeating a step.

This is why I bought an automatic film processor. It ‘kind of’ removes a lot of the manual stuff, but you still have to keep track of things, and you also need to ensure that you don’t contaminate the chemicals. Hence why you see I have six 1Ltr jugs in the picture above. Each of them for their own chemicals, so that I am not reusing one jug for a different chemical.

The film processor is a build to order item. I’ve been told there is a two or three month lead time on them. I now have a backlog of work from Brazil, Argentina and Scotland. Quite a lot of new Scottish images that I am keen to work on, as it has been a very long time since I really photographed my homeland properly.

So most of the items for the processing have been bought. I’ve run through the process a few times, but I also appreciate and realise that there are going to be growing pains. Building up experience in this. Being methodical, and consistent is key. Which is fine, because that is how I like to work when I am out shooting. I often have everything in my camera bag in the same place as I have learned that muscle memory is important.

As a keen piano player, when you are learning a new piece of music, if you learn the wrong note, it’s hard to unlearn it. Your fingers will keep going to the wrong place. And similarly, when you do learn something correctly, your fingers tend to always go to where they need to go next, without you really thinking about it.

Method is key in many aspects of landscape photography. For me, I have a process while I’m out in the field, as I do when I scan and print my own work. I am expecting that film development will be a further addition.

I will be writing further posts about my film processing experiences.

— post amble

You may be asking ‘why is he remaining with film, if processing is becoming more difficult?’ And perhaps additionally ‘why is he sticking with film when it must be getting more and more expensive?’. Lastly, you may also be wondering ‘surely film is dead-end? He will have to move to digital at some point?’.

For me, I find there is an inherent difference in look between film and digital. They are like apples and oranges and in my view should not be assumed as a replacement for the other. Choose what you like to work with because you like the process, or you like the look, or both. For me, I’m an oldie now. I’ve been using film for over 30 years now, and I am really comfortable with it. I also like how it responds, and I have also found I cannot get the same ‘look’ I want when I have tried digital. They are just different. Not better or worse, just different. But for me, I feel there is something in my work that is lost when I change medium. I’d like to keep running with the look I have at the moment, for as long as I can. However long that may be.

Then there is the subject of cost. To me, cost never comes into the equation if you really like something. What cost tells me is where people’s priorities or boundaries lie. Some may balk at spending £10 on an eBook, but will think nothing of a £3 coffee. £100 on a night out somewhere, but won’t spend £100 on a piece of art. It’s a matter of priorities and when someone tells me ‘I’d like to try film but it’s expensive’, they’re really telling me that it isn’t such a high priority for them. We all divvy up what we’re prepared to spend on things. I hate getting my car serviced and will come home upset at a £500 bill, but will think a lens on eBay for £1800 is a bargain…. All hobbies and passions have no upper limit to what someone can spend. As I say : cost never comes into it if you are passionate about it, which is where I am with film.

Lastly, film sales reached an all-time-low in 2009. Since then they have been rising each year. I have seen this mirrored in my workshop participants. Back in 2009 I was lucky to meet one film photographer every 12 months. Now I find about a third of my participants are hybrid shooters (they shoot film and digital, and probably have a black and white dark room at home). In my view, the digital honeymoon is now over (for many years I was continually asked if I’d made the jump to digital), and folks have realised there are other processes out there that are just as rewarding and sufficiently different to make them worth investigating. We live in a time where we have many options available to us. So many ways of making our work look different. It’s all rather encouraging and good :-)

Immesurable

Some gifts are immeasurable. Thank you Leanne, for such a lovely card. It has been on my fridge since our workshop together many years ago. Tonight I felt I should show appreciation.

image deep dive

I really liked doing these talks with Sam. A deep dive on one of my favourite images from Iceland

Introspection / inside and outside of yourself

I felt that my previous post about ‘feeling less inclined to post’ on my blog a day or so ago, might have come over as rather negative. As much as I can see that it may, the message I was really aiming for, is that I think creativity is a highly personal endeavour. Like having dreams and desires that we do not share with others, there is something hugely personal in the creative realm of our existence.

My own creativity comes from a place of introspection. I am an oxymoron, in that I run photographic workshops, and having to explain what I do, and perhaps more importantly ‘why’ I do what I do, has not come easily for me. As someone who works more intuitively, having to dissect my own compositions much later in order to explain them to others, I have always had an inner-world where my creativity resides.

As a young boy I was into painting and drawing. As a teenager I was into music composition. As an adult I moved from music into making images. During all these stages of my life, there was always one thing that was constant: an inner-world of dreams and visualisations.

I think that to develop as a photographer, there is only so much technique that one can learn. Technique equals ‘formula’ for me. The rest is just experimentation and intuition. A hunch that the unformed idea you have may show some promise. The hunch that what you’re currently doing is the right approach, even though you do not know what the outcome maybe, is vitally important.

Trusting one’s own introspection. To ask questions of oneself, to be in a constant state of ‘feeling if it fits’, and re-adjusting things all the time, and knowing that nothing is truly ‘finished’, is part of that inner world I think that all creative people live in.

Being a creative person is also a little bit schizophrenic in the sense that we have to be able to be ‘inside’ what we are doing whilst at the same time remain ‘outside’ of it. I think this is why photography tends to attract more introverts. Consider the street photographer: Is he really involved in the scene? In a way he is because he has to be part of it to get those intimate shots. But at the same time, he has to have the uncanny ability to also remain outside of the scene, as an observer.

This is what is at the heart of all creativity: the ability to be part of the creation, whilst remain outside as an observer. You need to lose yourself in order to be surprised and do new things, but you also need to be able to fine-tune and ‘steer’ the direction of the journey once you find your idea.

There is far too much concern of what others think. Rating your creativity based on what others feel about your work is dangerous. It has to come from within. If you know and trust your creative inner world, then you won’t get lost.

This is what I mean by sharing less. There has to be space and time to reflect upon your own thoughts and feelings for your own work. Just because I create images, doesn’t mean I always understand or like them immediately. I often have to sit with the work, and sometimes it’s many years before I’m able to grasp how I feel about it. So why hand that responsibility to others before you’ve even figured that out?

So value your inner world more, and consequently, perhaps share a little more lightly.