NPR Photography

NPR Photography My name is Nikolas P. Robinson and I provide freelance photography and videography services, photo and video editing, and photo printing.

Photos from the grist mill and Lewis River when Elizabeth, Josh, Jack, and I went on a brief adventure in November of 20...
10/05/2024

Photos from the grist mill and Lewis River when Elizabeth, Josh, Jack, and I went on a brief adventure in November of 2023.

Photos from Olympic National Park in August of 2024
10/05/2024

Photos from Olympic National Park in August of 2024

Some abandoned locations Elizabeth and I explored during our trip to and from Austin, TX in August of 2023.
10/05/2024

Some abandoned locations Elizabeth and I explored during our trip to and from Austin, TX in August of 2023.

I haven't been as active on this page as I should be...beyond cross-posts from my personal account.That lack of activity...
10/05/2024

I haven't been as active on this page as I should be...beyond cross-posts from my personal account.
That lack of activity doesn't mean I haven't still been taking photos, though.
These are from the 2023 Lee Farms Sunflower Festival.
Elizabeth, Jack, and I went down to Tualatin to check it out.

10/03/2024

Don't get me wrong...I can see the appeal behind using generative A.I.
There are images in my head that I have neither the skill nor the time (to learn the skills and obtain the practice) required to bring those visions to life.
I'm also 100% certain that every story I've written could be written better (whether by myself or by a better author). But if I want to write better stories, I need to read more and practice both my writing and my critical eye for said writing.
A good editor helps a lot, but they're not writing the stories or coaching me on how to write the recommended additions or adjustments...they're just suggesting what they think will work or what the narrative needs, and I've got to use my own voice to implement those changes for myself.
There are no shortcuts.
You either take the time to develop the skills and get the practice, or you don't.
It's not gatekeeping.
It's not ableist.
I could have dedicated my time to studying computer programming, music theory, or any number of things...but I didn't.
I don't get to pretend I'm a programmer because I tell a generative A.I. that I'd like a line of code that produces such-and-such result.
We all have stories we want to tell, music we want to hear, and art we'd like to see...and it's up to us to put in the work to make those things happen.

10/03/2024

Apparently, it's gatekeeping behavior to say that music, visual arts, and literature created by generative A.I. aren't art...and that the individual feeding prompts into that generative A.I. isn't an artist.
Nevermind that those generative A.I. programs were only made possibly by stealing from people who did create something...that's not even the point of this post.
Ordering a meal doesn't make you the chef (no matter how many substitutions you request, nor how many times you send the meal back), commissioning a painting doesn't make you a painter (no matter how much you researched the available artists, how detailed your initial description of what you want, and no matter how many times you meet with the painter to refine and fine-tune the final product), and saying, "Hey, I've got a great idea for a book that has a killer interdimensional clown terrorizing a group of children," doesn't make you Stephen King.
If you can't wrap your head around that, maybe yo7 should just keep on boot-licking the corporations and tech companies that want you to buy their line of bu****it, that you don't have to put any work or effort into creating something.
I'll go ahead and keep on gatekeeping.
If you disagree, you can probably have an A.I. provide you with a map to the door.

10/03/2024

If you want to delude yourself into pretending you're an artist when you've barely commissioned a piece from a generative A.I., then good for you.
Don't expect anyone to consider you an artist.
The same thing goes for being an author.
Hell, the same thing goes for being a coder, because if an A.I. is doing the coding, you don't deserve to get credit for it.

If a Roomba vacuums your house, your kid doesn't get credit for doing the work just because they plugged it in.

10/03/2024

I like the way Don Noble--an artist I've worked with for the cover designs of a couple of my books--has described it.
An "artist" utilizing A.I. to "create" is committing the artistic equivalent of stolen valor. They're claiming credit for something they've never earned.
I'd feel different about it if--and this is nowhere near the case at present--the A.I. was a sentient, conscious being in and of itself. But at that point, the artist would be the A.I. itself and the person supplying the prompts would have no more claim to call themselves an artist than the person patronizing the artist today.

10/02/2024

Whatever A.I. creates, it is not art.

By definition, art is, "the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination..."

08/25/2024

I just connected my massive Canon photo printer for the first time since I moved to the PNW almost two years ago. It's a relief to see there's no quality loss in prints, though I might need to make some tweaks to images I intend to print at 13x19...or at least be more selective of which ones I print at that largest size.

Elizabeth and I were at an estate sale here in Vancouver, sometime this summer...and the owner of the home had a number ...
12/27/2023

Elizabeth and I were at an estate sale here in Vancouver, sometime this summer...and the owner of the home had a number of old film-loaded cameras. I took a particular liking to this one...and while I was wandering around, looking at other things, Elizabeth snuck off and purchased this for me...holding onto it until she could give it to me for Christmas.
Whether it will still work, even if we load her up with film, is irrelevant to me. It's aesthetically pleasing to me, and the thought behind the gift makes it an amazing one.

For more than 20 years, I made my way to the Bear Butte Cemetery in Sturgis, SD--regardless of weather conditions--in or...
11/14/2023

For more than 20 years, I made my way to the Bear Butte Cemetery in Sturgis, SD--regardless of weather conditions--in order to place a single rose at the grave of Tiffany Winter Oliver.
It was my routine...every November 17th.
This coming Friday, it'll be 29 years since the accident that took her life, severely injured another girl, broke my back, and transformed the lives of more than just the three of us who survived the devastating experience.
Tiffany would be 43-years-old today, and I have to wonder how different the world would look if she'd survived in my place. For years, I assumed it would be a better world with her in it, and me in the ground...starting from the period after she was interred, and I ultimately had to be physically pulled from the edge of that hungry hole in the earth that begged me to crawl inside.
The guilt associated with stealing the vehicle, lying to Tiffany and Jessica about where it came from, and not being able to stop the course of events once they began spiraling out of control has eaten away at me for most of my life...devouring just enough to make the pain impossible to ignore, but never enough to kill me.
This time of year is always a bit harder on me...because I can't forget what I helped to destroy...the lives ruined as the ripples of that horrible morning spread out.
On top of all of that...I'm being confronted by so many other things I've failed at...and the weight feels crushing.

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4835 Sturgis Road, Lot 216
Rapid City, SD
57702

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+16055931974

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