04/05/2024
Letās talk about honesty in photography. There are a lot of (crap) photos generated by AI in our social feeds. I have no problem with fun AI apps or artistic creations, but itās dishonest to present these as ārealā life images, imo. I want you to be clear about what I post. I will probably never post an AI generated image. If I do, Iāll tell you. If I create a DougArt, Iāll tell you. I do use AI-based editing tools with the goal of producing excellent true-to-life depictions of what I actually saw with my own eyes. For example, in this photo, Scissor-tailed Flycatchers were very annoyed by the presence of this Red-tailed Hawk and kept buzzing the hawkās head and tapping it with their beaks! This little warrior actually landed on the hawkās head! Eventually the Hawk got the message and flew off. This was a real event, however, it took place way beyond the reach of my long lens, so I cropped the photo to fill the frame and I used advanced editing tools to add clarity and reduce noise. While this does create an image that is better than the one I captured with the camera, the scene itself remains life-like. All professional photographers will do this. I also detest fake over-saturated colors, but I do bump up saturation when I feel I did not capture the full spectrum of what I saw with my eye. This is my version of honesty in photography. Everyone will find their own. Some people donāt care about honesty, they just want to create/post pretty pictures, and thatās fine, to each their own. There are no rules here. Just donāt be naive and comment about āGodās handiworkā when Godās not the one that created itā¦š¤šš¤£š
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
Red-Tailed Hawk
South Carolina