A journal of various casual notes and thoughts, collected and edited throughout the day.
Change and Obsolescence
Just a quickie thought, as it’s another heat dome sort of day, and I shouldn’t have left my AC refuge to go shopping. It’s draining, even after a short trip. This is like COVID lockdown, in a way.
I was reading a Reddit post where a pro photographer was speculating that AI would make most of his job obsolete. And since I’m in my own photographer revival, it got me thinking. Yes, it will bring obsolescence, as many innovations have to many professions. And at each stage, one could argue that there is often a little less of the creative artist and more of the skilled artisan.
I suppose the first daguerreotype camera got the artists with brush and canvas a little worried. Then dry plates, and then film, as the complicated chemical processes were simplified down to a roll you could send to a lab, or the corner drugstore, and anyone could have a simple point-and-shoot camera. There still was the not so simple camera, as a parallel path for the pro-style photographer, with film and then digital. I had a lovely Nikon D90 with a bag of lenses and gadgets. I took a lot of good photos of back alleys, weddings, concerts, and family. Then we got smartphones and everyone was a photographer - not a good one, but it had become a choice of quantity over quality. Many felt it was better to be always ready to get an ok picture, than bemoan the loss of a really great one - if only you had your camera bag with you. There still are pros out there, but fewer people really care about the difference. At any rate, most smartphone cameras are pretty good now, and have the option for manual tweaking of many settings, so both amateurs and pros can be satisfied.
I’m trying to wind the clock back a bit myself, though. After switching to the convenience of Google Photos in The Cloud a number of years ago, I miss the control over things like tags, and overriding some choices made for me. I fired up my old Photoshop Elements 8, realized it was very old, and upgraded to the 2025 version. Better performance, better stability, and more features. Especially AI features. It can sort my pics by faces and locations, but it can also edit an image to do things like add or remove people, change the lighting, or sit everyone in an old-style carriage. Like the post-processing manipulation we used to do in a darkroom, but so much simpler. It still needs the creativity of using an artist's eye to select and set up the original photo, and then using the tools skillfully to achieve the desired artistic effect. But even that initial first step will become less necessary, and everything is done at the keyboard. As more of that process is automated, there will be less need for the artistic mind to be involved, to ‘see’ an initial image of a scene or person in a certain way, and then to creatively use tools, be it paint and canvas, a camera, or a computer mouse, and there will be more ability to just crank something out. Hopefully, we are still able to discern what is ‘good’ art.