For the past two months, I have been experimenting with AI and to see what I can come up with. Typing up something complex to see what I can come up with, to my satisfaction.
As a person who is a photographer and have taken photos of celebrities, models , concert events, city landcapes and traveled the world taking photos, I have to say that the state of artificial intelligence today has surpassed my expectations.
It’s rather interesting because more than a decade ago, I was always trying to find ways to capture certain models through 3D programs. I’ve used Poser and DAZ and these would take a long time to get right, to render and then postwork via Adobe Photoshop.
Lighting took awhile to get things right and there was usually a cost for models, clothing and more. If anything, time.
I would experiment via my 3D creation of Dark Angel Miki which would take days and weeks of tweaking.
Recreated the character in AI and it took seconds:
Finding a model who would have the time, the clothing the wings…it would be expensive unless you had a very good friend or girlfriend to pose for you. But as a person who has covered decades worth of events, I have been fortunate to travel the world and have photographed many thousands of people.
But for me, while there are things that I do enjoying taking photos of…I am too much of a perfectionist that I’m rarely pleased with my work despite many people loving my photos and it being used by many publications worldwide.
And the worse thing that I think to happen, more so during the pandemic, is that with age, my eyes are no longer sharp. The photos I take which I see in my camera viewfinder, what I think is clear, when I see the results, they are not what I wanted.
I feel like after many great photoshoots and wanting to take more and more photos, I still can…but I have my limits. Especially with my worsening eyesight.
I don’t know if I can cover events like I used to, being so busy for 8-16 hours eating very little just trying to be at the right locations, to get the best shot… that was a big part of my life back then.
That is not the case anymore.
And while I have hundreds of thousands of photos I have taken, it’s not enough, because I’m my own worse critic. I want things to be the best. To be perfect. So, I’m never satisfied.
And remember that 3D I just posted of Dark Angel Miki? I wanted to expand on what I did on 3D over a decade ago and try it via artificial intelligence. I have no budget to recreate what I want? So, that’s why I used 3D back then and even then, what I spent on models and clothing attire for the 3D models was not that cheap.
If someone told me I could create almost a life-like photo without the hours, days, weeks on 3D without spending a dime on clothing or lighting plugins. Nor do I have to hire a model, makeup artist and staff, invest in clothing and other related expenses for a photoshoot. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible until now.
Artificial intelligence allows you to do so much. So, here is what happened when I tried to expand on the Dark Angel Miki concept and adding more to the Dark Angel lore.
And from here on, now trying to see if I can do really natural near-photo realistic AI images.
I have experimented for months trying to nail things down, from lighting to what I can get from AI to delivery the type of photos that work for me.
And depending on how you type it, the better the results are. I figured out what keywords work well in getting the results that I want and the results I get take only a few seconds and the various images are generated. I tweak, until I get what I want and I get the emotion I want. The look that I want and trust me, it’s working great!
And flying superheroes? My gosh, the realism of how cool things look now compared to what I created back in 2011.
What about music artists?
What about women in costume? 2011 vs. 2024?
Dark Angel Hunter 2011/2024
Virtual Reality
3 Against One?
And as mentioned where 3D programs, you would have to spend quite a bit on the clothing and textures, meanwhile if I want an AI character wearing a long white knit sweater or black knit sweater… No problem!
Want that person to be inspired by Iron Man? May she be African American or Asian? Why not?
And what if you don’t want to create photorealistic images but cool artwork in general? Why not?
Suffice to say, artificial intelligence technology has quickly surpassed my expectations when it comes to the speed of generating an image and the quality.
Are things perfect? Not really. Depending on what you type, can lead to a generation of realistic to somewhat almost real to 3D art. And for every few very good ones, at this point, there is a lot of bad. A lot of unrealistic eyes, the way they twist their arms to the number of fingers or toes they have really showing you that it’s at all perfect.
With photography, one has a discerning eye and know how things should look, so I see one using their photography experience of wanting to strive for better photos.
Otherwise, you will get stuff like this…
As you can see, not all is perfect with virtual reality, but that can be said with a lot of other things. Keep tweaking, keep testing your keywords, but most importantly, have a careful look at the how many fingers, how the shoulders are, the top of the head and more, when it comes to virtual reality.
It’ s just funny sometimes to see characters have six fingers or six toes in AI generated images.
But laughs aside… the more I started to use it, I started to see it as a positive tool. But at the same time realize, one will have to be careful because people can now easily generate realistic images that are not true depictions. You can literally get away with creating some really messed up shit and that’s the scary part.
So, now the question is my feelings if artificial intelligence will affect photography. Of course, not.
Beautiful landscapes, awesome macro shots, beautiful portraits, there is an art in that, which people try to perfect and get better with the hardware that one has. I absolutely loved taking photos and knowing what you can get with the glass (lens) and lighting you have. But also knowing that you did it on your own and there are people willing to pay for your services.
Photography, like paintings, it’s never going to go away.
But there is something that Artificial Intelligence will give companies and businesses and that is to avoid paying certain photos that they can use for themselves to create a faux experience. Thumbnails? Images for websites making your establishment look cool or fun? And unfortunately, where companies will try to look for a bargain, artificial intelligence and its quick rate of bringing near realistic photos within seconds is something that companies will and have taken advantage of.
And unfortunately, there is a dark side to this as well. Because there is no cost to do this. But there are companies that take pride in a photographer’s photos. The real thing and I don’t see that ending anytime soon. Artificial Intelligence can barely do cool looking landscapes or cityscapes. It can’t do far full body shots without noticing eye, elbow or hand problems. But the thing is, with today’s technology, those issues I am mention in 2024, maybe gone by 2025 or 2026.
So, what it comes down to are the companies who have money and will continue to support photography and those who don’t and are willing to not pay anything to get something easily tailored for their needs. And those who are ethical and non-ethical when it comes to their approach towards artificial intelligence.
And it will take one with a discerning eye to figure out what is real and what is not real. It’s not as easy as one may think but some of you will spot certain things that look out of place, some may not. Here are a few I created via artificial intelligence.
By no means is artificial intelligence going to replace photography. They said the same thing about television and movies. While I play VR golf, will it surpass the real thing? No, of course not. But there are people who will gravitate towards newer technologies and feel they have just as much fun doing this with technology versus the real thing.
I can also play devil’s advocate here and say, with artificial intelligence, no one has to pay for an expensive camera, expensive lenses or fear people stealing your equipment. Spend thousands of dollars or go to a website and generate photos you want for free?
Technology changes society and with artificial intelligence, it’s something that I believe will change society for the good and also for the worst. It’s something to be prepared for and I’m not talking about jobs that will disappear or will be replaced but there will be a whole shift on those who are planning their future careerwise but also how AI will be utilized.
Trust me, AI is going to be integrated in your life, may it be the browser, the software, the hardware you use but it will go at full speed and if you are young, don’t get left behind.
While there are some who will resist new technology (trust me, I resisted digital photography for the longest time and I was shooting events with a film camera as late as 2011 until I realize how expensive it was to have the film developed that I went full force on digital). But I still have my film camera and lenses. I also resisted a smartphone for personal (as I had one for work, but I used a flip phone for personal for the longest time).
But should you embrace AI? or resist it? At this point in time, I don’t think you can unless you disregard technology.
But the truth is, does anyone care if it’s AI or not? I hope so. Not just for article generation or research, but what one uses for professionally.
We should care and how it’s permeating into culture and how some have even used AI to create photography and art and winning events and then later disclosing it was all done by AI, that’s scary. If you are going to use AI, be ethical about it.
Easy thing to say, if you want to do the right thing, but unfortunately if you have faith in humanity as a whole and believe everyone is going to do good things with it, then your going to be disappointed in the future when its used for nefarious things. Evil things. Seriously, I do believe that.
Like anything in life, you do things for the good or you do things for the bad. It’s been like that in the beginning and it’ll be like that in the future.
But it’s a future that will need to be prepared for. Especially when AI starts to capture celebrities or professionals or regular people’s likeness that people can do whatever with it, that’s absolutely dangerous. As we are seeing with Deep Fakes, may it be videos or speech. Imagine how those deep fakes you see on TikTok today, imagine where things go five years from now?
Back to the subject of photography and artificial intelligence… we are starting to see artificial intelligence in photos used in the worst way possible. Especially for war propaganda. And unfortunately, people without the discerning eye will take what they see as truth.
So, what should we use artificial intelligence image generating sites?
I see artificial intelligence at this time as a tool. Some who use it to eliminate backgrounds on their photos to those who try to make the most photorealistic work they can, that looks like the real thing. And one should disclose if it’s artificial intelligence created or if it was the real thing.
One can use it as a template as one had to create designs, buildings or fashion and more. For one to use to further their creativity and it really doesn’t cost much of anything to do it.
Granted, we are seeing companies creating AI Instagram influencers and developing the technology to use that same model and put her in a variety of photos. With many of the free AI image creating sites, you can’t use the same character, as you will get something random each time. So, this is a chance for AI companies, similar to what they have done with 3D, utilize various models for various type of settings. Granted, just thinking of that now and I can see how that will also go wrong and next thing you know will have a plethora of AI Only Fans or AV characters. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was something like that right now.
Ahh….technology.
I’m not sure where things will be five years from now when it comes to how realistic artificial intelligence will be but the fact that technology has brought it to this level of quality and speed, it wouldn’t surprise me if things are improved within the next year.
But I surely do know how far things have come from 2011 to 2024, may it be from photograph or 3D technology to what today’s artificial intelligence can generate within a matter of seconds. It’s scary when you think about it, but at the same time, it’s also a bit exciting.
I guess we’ll see…
