I've been a professional landscape photographer for almost 30 years and I don't think I'll ever send an image taken from my desk by typing words into a prompt. My job is another.
My photography is done with a camera, while walking, cycling or driving to a place. It is made up of emotions, effort, heat, cold, clear or stormy skies and a lot of satisfaction. As Seth Godin says, it's a practice.
I agree with your proposal and I think that in the future there will always be many people who will ask for real photography for their stories to tell and not all these identical images copied here and there.
And it will have to cost more than an AI image, because the marginal cost of an AI image is very close to zero, while a real photograph requires expensive equipment, travel costs, and in some cases, real models.
It will be like the vinyl record in music.
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I agree with your proposal and I think that in the future there will always be many people who will ask for real photography for their stories to tell and not all these identical images copied here and there.
And it will have to cost more than an AI image, because the marginal cost of an AI image is very close to zero, while a real photograph requires expensive equipment, travel costs, and in some cases, real models.
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buyers dont care about how the artist traveled to get a picture or the cost of their equipment - they want an image for their needs & dont care whether AI or not.
AI isnt there yet for most actual locations and model-type images need improvement, as Jo Ann & others have documented. but as AI evolves it will be to the buyers' benefit to use AI generated people rather than the model release hassles for editorial usage.
much of microstock is 'low-quality' but what's the incentive for agencies &who would make the subjective labeling? even at this young age AI many AI i mages are better than 'low-quality' digital images
buyers dont care about how the artist traveled to get a picture or the cost of their equipment - they want an image for their needs & dont care whether AI or not.
AI isnt there yet for most actual locations and model-type images need improvement, as Jo Ann & others have documented. but as AI evolves it will be to the buyers' benefit to use AI generated people rather than the model release hassles for editorial usage.
I think you are right for very low-quality work, but you are wrong for those who want to differentiate themselves from others.
And today, in marketing, it matters a lot to do different things to stand out from the crowd. Even for those who buy images....
Stock photography and especially AI images will serve to fill low-quality blogs and websites at a price close to zero. It will probably no longer be a lucrative market for creators.
We need to do as RedBubble did which divided the contributors between Premium and Standard, giving more visibility to the Premium ones.
much of microstock is 'low-quality' but what's the incentive for agencies &who would make the subjective labeling? even at this young age AI many AI i mages are better than 'low-quality' digital images
we were talking about microstock where there's no indication buyers care at all for artist stories or look for a specific artist they're too busy buying cheap images
i participate in several groups on FAA (and admin for 5) and have never heard anyone on Redbubble reporting significant income. more income from those using twitter & mastodon, but still dwarfed by microstock income
Only people who have produced quality images, at the cost of effort, time, renunciation of mediocrity, self-challenge, and perhaps ultimately talent can understand this turning point. And they see absolutely no benefit in what AI produces.
AI enthusiasts can only be delighted to finally be able to produce what they have never been able to produce.
Only people who have produced quality images, at the cost of effort, time, renunciation of mediocrity, self-challenge, and perhaps ultimately talent can understand this turning point. And they see absolutely no benefit in what AI produces.
AI enthusiasts can only be delighted to finally be able to produce what they have never been able to produce.
I think microstock has opened up to too many amateurs and is getting too close in quality to freemium sites like Pexels, Unsplash, Pixabay and Freepik.
The race to the bottom of prices will penalize the contributors. Especially the quality ones that risk becoming invisible. And it will be even worse with AI available to everyone.
I have a portfolio of 5,000 images and sell much more than contributors with 50,000 images. Quality matters, but with this invasion of AI my images risk becoming invisible.
I am full time and until 3 years ago microstock was 90% of my earnings.
Now I earn the same amount but the microstock is now at 50% and the rest is print-on-demand and commissioned work.
I achieved this by working hard on my personal branding with blog, social media, and personal website.
If microstock agencies don't change, I don't see a brilliant future, they will look more and more like sites like Unsplash, Pexels because the best contributors are all leaving.
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It's more important to produce real content than AI,especially if you have some skills and experience,it's better to use it,but it is always better to try to do everything possible.
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a label for real content is a good idea,i actually don't know if it's necessary,since if it's not AI it's real,but perhaps it can somehow highlight real content more. :)
right - "do everything possible." is why we use AI
what makes it real to use a highly automated machine that measures light and turns it into a series of pixels, themselves descrbed by 1 & 0's?
in ultimate terms NO art is 'real' but that's its beauty - an artist's interpretation of the physical world
@Bauman AI contents are illustrations,in the end it is just a rendering of pixels,but it is certainly a form of art like 3D or painting,even if painting requires more skill and experience,there's no denying that creating AI content is an art form.
@Bauman AI contents are illustrations,in the end it is just a rendering of pixels,but it is certainly a form of art like 3D or painting,even if painting requires more skill and experience,there's no denying that creating AI content is an art form.
The problem is that many people use AI as if it were a photograph and not an illustration.
And this is not good for us photographers (because we lose sales) and for those who look at these images, because almost always, when they are published, it is not specified that they are AI and therefore they are confused or even deceived by fake photographs.
I take landscape images from real, but the web is full of fake landscapes that are believed to be real. Maybe you book a trip to a location that isn't the one you see in the photos.
And this is not good for us film photographers (because we lose sales) and for those who look at these images, because almost always, when they are published, it is not specified that they are digital and therefore they are confused or even deceived by fake film images
@Bauman AI contents are illustrations,in the end it is just a rendering of pixels,but it is certainly a form of art like 3D or painting,even if painting requires more skill and experience,there's no denying that creating AI content is an art form.
The problem is that many people use AI as if it were a photograph and not an illustration.
And this is not good for us photographers (because we lose sales) and for those who look at these images, because almost always, when they are published, it is not specified that they are AI and therefore they are confused or even deceived by fake photographs.
I take landscape images from real, but the web is full of fake landscapes that are believed to be real. Maybe you book a trip to a location that isn't the one you see in the photos.first, you assume all those using 'fake' landscapes believe them to be real - if i'm writing about castles in general, i may just want a generic castle
...the map is not the territory
Photography is different from ALL other arts because it requires a drawing from reality, an imprint of reality.
If it doesn't come from reality it's not photography, it's something else. Call it by another name.
right - "do everything possible." is why we use AI
what makes it real to use a highly automated machine that measures light and turns it into a series of pixels, themselves descrbed by 1 & 0's?
in ultimate terms NO art is 'real' but that's its beauty - an artist's interpretation of the physical world
Photography is different from ALL other arts because it requires a drawing from reality, an imprint of reality.
If it doesn't come from reality it's not photography, it's something else. Call it by another name.
Where does image retouching fit into this? Should only completely unretouched images be allowed as "natural creations"?