Thoughts about AI and Art

 Horse laugh. Near Riceville, McMinn County, Tennessee.

 A few weeks ago I took on the issue of "photographs" created by AI. Are they photographs, or are they not?

My position is that they are not photographs. As I wrote before, the essence of photography is that it is photographic. It is a picture made by the action of light reflected from something that has objective reality onto a sensitized surface. Light rays bouncing off something that really exists go through a lens and are recorded onto film, a sensor of some kind, or something not yet invented, but whatever it is, it is "writing with light." The unique power of photography is derived from this direct connection to reality. 

My friend the graphic designer and artist Michael Largent creates beautiful work by extensively altering photographs in Photoshop. I haven't talked to him recently -- he may be working with AI by this time. His pictures are art, no question. But are they photographs? Just barely, if at all.

Could someone using AI create a picture like my Laughing Pony? Of course, if he could imagine such a thing. And that's the difference. The magic of photography is that life holds so many amazing and wonderful things that are entirely unanticipated, unexpected, even unimagined in the deepest sense; that is -- no one would ever have thought of such a thing. And then, suddenly, right out of the fabric of life, up gallops my pony.

(About the photo: This was made in McMinn County, Tennessee, as I was returning from a  barn-hunting trip in Kentucky and other points north. The camera was one of my first in the Canon EOS system, the EOS 10S. It was a really good camera for its time, although I eventually upgrades to the EOS A2. The lens was probably the Canon EF 24mm, and film, as always, was Fujichrome 100D.)

If you like my pictures, visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/  

Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.

Text and photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2026.  

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone.

Tags:   photography     film photography     AI    Canon EOS 10s camera     Canon EF 24mm lens    art and photography   Rock City Barn photographs