When I head out with my camera today, I want to see what I'll later show. This authenticity matters to me, even when I'm selling an illusion. Sounds paradoxical? Maybe it is. But it's how I work.
AI can do a damn good job of inserting objects into images now. A sailboat here, a flower there, maybe a dramatic cloudy sky. But why? To play around? As a gag? Not my style. I don't compose at the computer what I haven't photographed myself.
Instead, I use AI for what it is to me: another tool in the toolbox. When the midday sun has hammered down brutally from above and the skin looks like a lunar landscape, I soften it. With severe acne too. It's all happened before. AI helps me work faster, retouch more efficiently. It optimizes my workflow.
Some might see this as self-limitation. I see it as clarity. As positioning. My artistic vision hasn't changed because of AI features. I myself want to tell visual stories. And I want to invite you to dream with my photos. Create images for your mind's eye.
For that, I don't need AI. I can manage that on my own.
Technology is developing at breakneck speed. New possibilities every day, new promises, new tools. I could go with the flow, could radically change how I work, could do what many are doing. Or I can stick with what matters to me: photographs that I've seen myself. Moments that were real. Images that tell a story because they had one.
AI is my tool, not my magic wand. It speeds up my work, but it doesn't define it. That's my philosophy. Transparent, clear, uncompromising.
And honestly? I feel pretty good about it.