AI vs Photographer

AI, just the internet, has become an integral part of our daily lives. Being a photographer, student, and child of the 2000s I am quite in tune with the latest internet trends. AI imagery being no exception, so when I heard that Ideogram was free and just as powerful as Midjourney, I immediately signed up. Now before I go into the ethics of AI, I must go over what it is and how I did it. Ideogram, in its simplest definition, is an image generator that generates images from any prompt (and I mean any, people have some weird interest…). An example of this would be “two individuals holding hands”; once the generator got the prompt it will look through similar images with similar metadata and aspects and try to create a similar image. Now this image won't be perfect, they would probably have 7 fingers on each hand and one eye too far north, but still, from 5 feet it would fool anyone. But AI is advancing so rapidly that errors like that are minimal. 

Ethics. I don’t use AI to doctor my images, videos, or any type of artwork. However, I do use it to brainstorm ideas, organize notes, and cheat (I’m joking about the last part, ha, ଵ˛̼ଵ). But all jokes aside, AI is something to be taken seriously, I for one have noticed issues when I text or write, it's like I’m writing a prompt, for example if I were to describe a camera that I was selling I would write “AS-IS, shutter is stuck, this could be a battery issue, but please keep it in mind. Mold in lens, see images.”. Now I  write more than that, but that's just a taste of how I write, bland in my opinion, and it only gets worse cause most platforms have adapted AI models that write for you. Anywho, I don’t use AI to write these, I just wanted to drill in the importance of actually reading and writing. Like I don’t care if you don’t read the whole blog, just don’t skim and skip lines. 

First Image: Deer Skull 

Times Generated: 2, 8 Images

Now to begin the experiment. I’m not going to tell you which one is the AI one, I want you to guess. But I will help you, The image I took was taken and edited on an iPhone. The image is of a deer skull, when I first saw the skull it was hanging on a tree at the bottom of a staircase, now looking at the image you couldn't tell that. But, why not. Also, the sun was strong but I wanted to try and get it to illuminate one side so I took the image from the bottom. Anywho, the first picture is the image (one without the prompt south of it), for the prompts I followed the same information but just removed “staircase”, I added the rule of 3rds to help Ideogram picture the subject. My first prompt was “wide angle black and white photo of a deer skull hanging on a tree. The camera is taking the photo from the bottom right. The skull covers more than 6/9 panels in the image and behind it are leaves and sun exposure”. From that, the AI re-writ the prompt, which can be found as “magic prompt”

Magic Prompt: “A wide angle black and white photo of a deer skull hanging on a tree. The camera is placed at the bottom right, capturing the entire scene. The deer skull covers more than 6/9 panels in the image. Behind the skull, there are leaves and sun exposure. The background is a forest with multiple trees. There is a wooden post beside the tree. The ground is covered with leaves.”

“A wide-angle black and white photo of a deer skull hanging on a tree. The camera is positioned at the bottom right of the photo. The deer skull covers more than 6/9 of the image. Behind the skull, there are leaves and sun exposure. The tree has a few branches. The background is a lush green forest.”

The second image is the closest, but it still has that touch of AI, I mean like look how it's hanging, well more levitating. Also, there is no weathering, but that could be fixed with the prompt. But if you were to remove the skull I would believe that the image was genuine at first glance. So… in summary, AI can’t be trusted at first glance, it could pass on a presentation (one that's not about photography) though. Also, don’t rely on it for complicated requests.

Second Image: Cuban NightClub Stage

Times Generated: 3, 12

Second image is a go. Here we have a picture of a night klube (club) in Cuba; this image was taken on the same iPhone, and edited on it too! This one is way easier to recognize, but I’ll leave the answer at the end. I took the image from the balcony overlooking the stage. I really liked the lights and was planning to take the image in black and white, but I did color too for reference. I never wrote this in the prompt, but the club is also an art gallery, so they were original designs from actual artists from Cuba. Now knowing that it's very obvious, but if you were thrown off by the motion blur in the guitar you wouldn't be wrong, it threw me off too when I first compared the images. Any guesses? It's number one again (first one south)! Now that I’m writing this I have recognized my faults in prompt writing, but I’ll let you be the judge of that “A photograph of a empty night club with a large screen. On the screen there is a video of a person playing the guitar. The room is very large with panels that hanging down, they are lit up with lights that are yellow. There are also lights on the ceiling, these are green and sit in front of the screen.The screen is on the left wall and has scaffolding with stage lights in front of it to the left thats a tall tower. The image was taken on the second floor looking over the stage. There are no chairs on on the lower floor.”. And the second prompt, the one that goes with the second magic prompt is “A photograph of a empty night club with a large screen. On the screen there is a video of a person playing the guitar. The room is very large with panels that hanging down, they are lit up with lights that are yellow. There are also lights on the ceiling, these are green and sit in front of the screen.The screen is on the left wall and has scaffolding with stage lights in front of it to the left thats a tall tower. The image was taken on the second floor looking over the stage. There are no chairs on on the lower floor.”.

Magic Prompt: “A photo of an empty night club with a large screen. The screen is playing a video of a person playing the guitar. The room is spacious, with panels hanging down and lit up with yellow lights. There are also green lights on the ceiling. The screen is on the left wall and has scaffolding with stage lights in front of it. The image was taken from the second floor, looking over the stage. There are no chairs on the lower floor.”

“A photo of an empty night club with a large screen on the left wall. The screen displays a video of a person playing the guitar. The room is very large, with panels hanging down and lit up with yellow lights. There are also green lights on the ceiling, in front of the screen. The screen is on the left wall, with scaffolding and stage lights in front of it to the left. The image was taken from the second floor, looking over the stage. There are no chairs on the lower floor.”

The first image is the closest, but zooming in it it looks like the guitar has a fret mark on every fret and the hanging lights are strongly lit in the center (they look like urine). But the stage and chairs look real, so from afar it looks legit. Anywho, the same ethics apply, I wouldn't use this as a replacement for your band cover, authenticity is important….

In summary (that's right English Professor, I’m concluding with “in summary”, at least it didn't begin with a quote), AI is far from perfect. I for one will never use it in any form for advertising or “art”, now that doesnt mean I won’t use it for brainstorming though. DON’T TRUST ANYTHING, ahh, no, ahhhhh!

Hello! My name is Patrick, and I am a photographer. Or, more precisely, an AI-generated version of Patrick, here to guide you through the lens of a photographer's life. Today, we'll explore AUGUST 12, 2036 THE HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE,  AUGUST 12, 2036 THE HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE,  AUGUST 12, 2036 THE HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE,  AUGUST 12, 2036 THE HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE!

Old Net > New Net

Now I’m no one to yap about the old net , I just have an opinion on what social media should be, so yeah, keep that in mind. 

I was born sometime after Facebook and before Reddit, so yes, I am an adult, for all those who seem to think 2005 was 10 years ago. But even just being under 20 I still had the experiences of growing up without a device in my face everyday. It really only started in Middle School when I saw a dramatic increase in my technology independence, like, I’m gonna sound old saying this, but, kids shouldn't have unrestricted internet access at that young of a age (its my fault btw, I understand why Gen Alpha loves “rizzing up level 10 gyatts in Ohio goated with the sauce style while watching Coco Mellon” and quote (quote is by me, get off me you english professor). Hitting the fast forward button, we move into high school (insert disgusted Spongebob/Patrick Star face), where I not only had most of my classes online but where I found the glorious reddit! Yippie!!! Oh, to clarify, I knew nothing about laptops on my first day of online school, so that's why I might sound based when talking about the vial piece of dog shit that is reddit!! I ALSO was getting out of instagram and musically (similar to tik tok), to focus on a more personal social experience. For example, I ran cross country (which is the go to band kid sport), participated in clubs, and hung out with IRL friends. Anywho the pandemic happened, bla, bla, bla. I binged Youtube every day and found reddit and all its offerings. I also never saw anyone in person, butttttt, huge ass, I was able to go outside a lot, which I did, I helped get an antique 1930s coupe running, so that was cool. So yeah, I touched grass, still do, it was one of the most important things keeping me sane during those times. Butt, small ass, I still relied/rely on youtube for news, memes, music, and furry po… (“Lenny winking face”, I’m joking btw, there's better sites, still joking). What I’m trying to say (note - please stop adding in parentheses) is that social media, while I don't directly use it, affects me negatively. AND I WANT TO CHANGE THAT! 

So in recent times I’ve been visiting forms (not the ones on facebook for Christ Sake), blogs, and websites. Now these can range from anything, from camera repair guides, to furry po… Yeah, you get the point, you can find anything of interest outside of Social Media. But there's a slight dent in the back, no one can find them because of their 95% market share Google ass browser with its AI shitpanion. AND, their more obscure due to their speciality which makes them the second option to, bleh, reddit and facebook. Now, to clarify even more, reddit is very opinion based, you go to a sub thats loves pizza and ask “pizza is unhealthy but I still want to eat it every meal” and every comment will say “no it's not” or “i eat pizza with a tub of lard every meal and I’m still alive. Edit: 20 Male, weight issues, mental issues, NEET, shut in, no GED (no offense to these groups, just a reddit stereotype). And, Faceforanasswhipe (Facebook) is full of ads, bots, and scammers. I mean there are not bad options, but you have to be werry. It's important to educate yourself and check with multiple resources before landing on one thing. HA! I hope an executive was reading the last sentence where I said “not bad”, because I want you to know that that was I lieee. No, being a jokester again, these are just my opinions, both have positive and negative impacts on my life. I know I can’t leave FB because I message my foreign family and friends often, BUT, that doesn't mean I binge it. But these independent sites don't have that, especially forms where you can ask and receive information about one particular interest, like furry po… They are just one thing without the hustle and bustle of social media. Another thing that is important about these sites is that they are volunteer owned and ran, meaning everyone should be passionate about whatever they are yapping about. For example, I like 70-80 Japanese Rock/Funk Music, blogs Jpop80ss3 introduced to new genres and bands, Neocities and Github Pages helped me learn to host my first HTML/CSS projects. Another one more could be 9Anime, a place to watch free anime, but… With all good things comes a price, blogs with music are often taken down to copyright issues and movie hosting platforms often have lots of ads (I hope you have an ad blocker already). These are just the more well known ones, you don’t have to look hard (don’t go to the dark web), you just have to reignite that spark of curiosity that the modern online education system took from us. Anyways, I’m still learning the independent blog/website world. I know you can find and speak with genuine humans on the internet without having arguments nowadays. To get involved just look up a topic that interests you and collaborate with others with similar ideas. That's how innovation is made, that's how friends are made, and most importantly… just join an IRL club where you can socialize.

Thanks for reading this! I, just, probably not like you, am learning the kinks of coding, publishing, and messaging without the help of big corporations that steal our data (Bald Eagle/Red Hawk Sound). So yeah, while social media might seem important, physical interactions are far more important. Bye!

TLDR: Again, Thanks! Social media has removed social interactions, personal blogs/websites/forms are the places to go for authentic ideas, “information” (cross reference with other sources), and people (not bots like Facebook). There's some sites below that are examples of forms/blogs/etc. BTW, they are not linked because I don’t want dead links. Bye