AI in photography
We are talking about yesterday
Every time AI comes up, something strikes me. The conversation lags behind. Someone has just formed an opinion, taken a position, and meanwhile AI is three steps further on. We debate what was, not what is. And certainly not what is coming. That makes it difficult. Because how do you take an honest position on something that will not stand still?
I am going to try anyway. Not with grand statements, but from what I see, use and experience myself. As a photographer, as someone who gives workshops, and as someone who simply wants to think properly about what this means for our craft.
I use it myself as well
Let us start by being honest. I use AI. In Photoshop, in Topaz Photo AI, and it is built into the retouching options in Capture One too. Do I always do that consciously? Not always. Sometimes I click a button and the program does its work without my thinking about it further. And that probably applies to most photographers reading this.
AI has been in our tools for years. Noise reduction, smart masking, automatic exposure. We do not always call it AI, but that is what it is. The line between “just editing” and “using AI” blurred long ago. That makes the conversation more honest, I think. Because the question is no longer whether you use AI. That question has already been answered.
The question is: how consciously do you do it, and what for?
The story comes first
That is the heart of it for me.
My biggest objection to AI in photography is not technical. It is about substance. If the story comes second, or worse, becomes contrived, a photo loses its reason to exist. A photo is not an illustration of something that might have been. A photo is a moment. A conversation. One person facing another.
That is exactly why my PAUSE portraits work the way they do. Not because I am so technically good, but because the conversation during the shoot is most of the work. What you see in a portrait like that is something you cannot generate. It asks for presence. It asks for trust. It asks for time.
Can an AI image move me? Yes, honestly, it can. But they always have something of what I call the kitsch-painting quality: technically strong, emotionally hollow. The image wants to say something, but it has not been through anything. There is no backbone behind it.
Unless the image is purely illustrative. An AI image alongside a strong text, where the text tells the story and the image only reinforces it, can work perfectly well. But then the image is not the story. That is a big difference.
When do you have to say so?
“This is AI.” Transparency is another subject where everyone sets the bar differently.
My own line: an Instagram account that runs entirely on AI images should say so. That is not an opinion, it is honesty towards your audience. But if you retouch out a distracting mark, or reduce noise, you do not need a disclaimer. Context and purpose determine the honesty, not a black and white rule. What matters is what you claim it to be.
A photo that says “this is what I saw” has to be that. An image that says “this is an impression” may be freer. As long as you are open about it, there is little wrong. It only becomes a problem when you blur the line to gain from it, at the expense of the person you are recording, or at the expense of the truth.
The line everyone draws differently
In my workshops I see the difference clearly. Many participants are curious. They want to know what is possible, how it works, whether it can help them. At the same time there are people, often a little older, who would rather have nothing to do with it. I understand them as well. If you have invested years in a craft, you do not want a program imitating it in five seconds. But ignoring it is getting harder. That is simply the reality.
For my own work I do not see AI as a threat. My portraits are too personal, too dependent on presence and conversation. That cannot be replaced. But for a product photographer, or someone making travel photos for stock, or someone who simply needs a good image for a website, AI is a serious help. My advice to those people: get ahead of it. Whoever stands at the front of its use grows with the development instead of running after it.
That is not “capitulation”. That is smart. I think.
AI has been thinking with you for a while
And then there is something else I have noticed lately, which goes beyond photography alone. AI is less and less an executor and more and more a thinking partner. What I see in tools like Claude, and what I notice in my own workflow, is no longer the AI of two years ago. It thinks with you. It asks questions back. It helps you get sharper.
That is a different relationship from “I type an instruction and the program carries it out”. And that shift asks something of us too. A different attitude. More direction. Choosing more consciously what you hand over and what you do yourself. Because if AI thinks with you, you had better know what you want to think.
That may be the biggest lesson. Not whether you use AI, but whether you are still the one setting the course.
So where are we?
Back to the beginning. We are talking about yesterday, while AI is already working on tomorrow. The debate lags behind, the tools do not. And the question of whether AI is good or bad for photography is going nowhere as long as we ask it as though a definitive answer is coming.
What is urgent: the places where AI uses faces, voices and bodies without permission for commercial gain or worse. Deepfakes. Fake pornographic images of real people. There no nuance is in order. That is abuse, and it calls for clear regulation. Not as a wish, but as a necessity. For the rest: the tool is neutral. The photographer is not.
You decide what you use it for. You decide where your story starts and where the tool stops. You are the one with something to say.
Or have you already lost a little of that direction?
Sources, besides AI
I use Claude.ai for outlines and inspiration
The image of me in conversation with AI was made in ChatGPT
Blind Magazine (2025). Images Under Influence: How AI Has Slipped Into Our Everyday Photography.https://www.blind-magazine.com/stories/images-under-influence-how-ai-has-slipped-into-our-everyday-photography/
The Conversation (2025). AI is just one of the thorny issues facing photography – here’s how the industry can prioritise ethics.https://theconversation.com/ai-is-just-one-of-the-thorny-issues-facing-photography-heres-how-the-industry-can-prioritise-ethics-241148
From Light 2 Art (2025). Image Manipulation Ethics: Where Art Ends and Deceit Begins.https://fromlight2art.com/image-manipulation-ethics-a-2025-deep-dive/