It's going to come down to the transcendentals behind the surface aesthetics of the image. Authenticity, truth, meaning, purpose, etc.

Hi Pye and Lee I thought this was an excellent discussion of the current status and future use of AI in photography. I would like to see you continue this discussion in future videos. Thanks for your great work. Pat Hogarty from El Dorado Hills California.

Pye is 110% correct. Our photography clients want a good experience and to lean on our creative knowledge to get images they love. Photography has never been about producing a technically correct collection of images but a source of memories.

I agree with Pye that the experiential moment type of photography will be minimally impacted by AI. AI can enhance photos, but its all about the experience that you capture at smaller events. I am known for shooting motorcycle rallies and have developed a large following for annual events in the southeast of the U.S. I was originally noticed for my photography by accident, from my point of view. I shot for fun and posted to the biker's website. The next year I went back to a particular bike rally and I was noticed by a large number bikers who saw me with my camera and immediately called my name wanting to have me take their pictures. This has grown over ten years to about 50,000 followers. I was told that I would make them relive the event when they looked at my photos on social media. I capture real decisive moments with my timing. People about to hug, or the high fives or the laughter and joking. I do use Photoshop's AI to extend frames, to replace cut-off feet, expand the width of a frame, change light and shadows, improve bokeh, and a meriad of other mistakes. Yes, you could take these types of pictures with a cell phone, but no person thus far at these events has captured the decisive moment like I do and that makes me popular. I'll admit I will not get rich, but I don't see AI replacing the experience of these events. Same thing with surprise parties where I constantly look for teeth to get that moment. One last thing, how does AI replace red carpet moments like that sexy gown, which is a moment in real time or an MBA game or the Olympics? Maybe in the future for events, you'll have humanoid or flying drones taking photos and enhancing them with AI automatically before sending to the media outlets.

Great conversation. Gives us lots to think about!

I would really like to hear more of Pye's thoughts and opinion. I find him much more balanced and forward-looking.

Incredible and thought provoking discussion! 🤯 Thanks for the valuable insight

Really enjoying this. Thank you

Sure, bring it on and I'll grab some of my dream cameras at fire sale prices and keep on loving the traditional photographic process.

so who will gather up the wedding party, keep the timeline on schedule, put out fire type situations with guests and families, who's shoulder will the bride cry on or who will she laugh with? Who will get the safety pins and position the details perfectly? Who will created the planning timeline for photography? Who will meet with the clients before the wedding to help walk them through the timeline and what to expect? Who will hand deliver their album or establish that emotional connection to those photos after the wedding so that they relive their moments every day after the wedding? I am torn on this as well, but I genuinely feel a qualified human is needed to make the experience valuable. Professional photography is not for everyone and never has been. It will only be for those people in the future who recognize the photographer's value, just as it is now. You always have to be willing to pivot in your business no matter what business you are in! PIVOT! We recently pivoted from youth team and individual volume sports to Seniors, weddings and family and more studio work because we see a desire for it in our area.

I think a flaw with some of these pro AI arguments in this discussion is the implication that smartphones are some sort of infinitely scaling technology. That they are just going to continue to improve over time with no bound. The problem is that there's always bounds with technology and smart phones are no different. I think you can make the argument that we're already hitting those limits with smartphone tech in much the same way we are with camera tech. We've already reached peak smartphone, which is why every single new phone release regardless of brand feels stale and derivative. The incentive to upgrade to a new phone diminishes with every release because we've started to hit limits on practicality and user experience... so in many ways each new release is just a collection of small incremental improvements on what came before... many of these improvements aren't even perceptible anymore. This is exactly why the big tech companies are leaning so heavily into VR and augmented reality wearables because they recognize that we've hit peak saturation with smart phone tech and there's only so much you can pack into them before they're no longer really the same class of device. Yes smartphones can take amazing images, but a lot of the results still look far inferior to using an actual camera with a proper lens. Also I think what all this stuff boils down to is a "barrier to entry" paradox. I.e. the barrier to entry for people to be able to generate awesome looking images and to manipulate them has been decreasing for years and continues to do so. But I think a lot of the examples that people lose their minds over have to do more with the removal of some perceived barrier to entry and less to do with the end result. Image synthesis and editing in photoshop have been a thing for forever at this point. Photo realistic computer graphics have been a thing forever, portrait retouching has been around forever... The only difference now is that the time it takes to execute on these processes has decreased significantly. This cuts to the point made in the video that people place too much emphasis on the difficulty on executing on something rather than the end result. If your career has been artificially protected by barriers to entry you are in trouble. You should focus more on creativity and lees on mundane execution. AI tools facilitate the latter

Really interesting conversation. Enjoyed listening to the various opinions and views.

A few years ago, it was said that Nikon was left behind in the mirrorless world and look at the Z9/8 today. Why can't a camera be designed with fluid access to the internet? As for being too big, Sony is as large a corporation as you could image and I remember when their cameras were lukewarm and they turned the industry around with mirrorless cameras. Sony is also a large cell phone manufacturer.

Lee has never been a photographer. He's just a salesman.

First time viewer. Great video! Some challenging questions. Some of your conclusions echo my own expectations. I'm coming at this from a Psychology perspective too. Any suggestions for getting in touch with Pye? I am looking for "a boss" (supervisor) for the last part of my MSAP Internship. I can think of a few research projects that would be mutually beneficial!

There is nothing wrong with collecting postcards and shooting a beautiful location. It’s up to each one to decide whether they want that same shot or get a different perspective on the location. When we judge other photographers in a negative because they set up their tripods for hours in groups I wonder what that says about the person judging? Because this isn’t about the photographers with their tripods. AI will definitely replace part of genres like commercial portraits and product photography. At the same time I agree with Pie that it won’t be able to create an experience and emotions from a regular shoot, especially not with couples or dogs/horses etc.

Enjoyed the conversation- camera companies need to realized “it’s the software stupid …”

you talked about a phone compnay making a phone with lenses.. that is basically what samsung had done many years ago.. they were ahead of their time and therefore did not catch on.. but now, could be a different story

Super telephoto pics (sports and wildlife) are still safe from phones.

LOL I tried midjourney and all that and I felt like I was trying to re-invent the wheel with a DOS system and yahoo chat rooms. I'm trying, but man it seems like they are making things more difficult than they need to be!

Where is the color?

The idea of an Artificial Photograph is self contradictory- like the idea of non stick glue- a photograph is defined by the fact that it has it's origins in the capture of real light in the real world. What these AI's are doing is applying a 'photographic style' to their outputs, in the same way that they can also apply an oil painting style, so calling these outputs 'photographs' is innaccurate- they are better described as images rendered in the style of photography. This may sem like a trivial distiction but I don't think it is. At present AI generated fake photography is borrowing legitimacy from the fact that most of the photo real images we see around us are in fact actual photographs, so the fake images get a free pass. But in the not too distant future we may find ourselves in a world where most of the photo real images are fakes, generated by AI. At this point I think people will begin to worry about the lack of legitimacy AI generated images represent. An AI image in the style of a photograph is not simply an extension of the Photoshop ethos of image enhancement, it is false and thus deceptive to an absolute degree, because there was no underlaying truth from which that image was created. People do not like being deceived and once they become clearly aware that images that are presented to them as being photographs are not photographs there will be a backlash against the use of AI images styled to look like photographic images because such images will be seen as false and deceptive in their very essence. Any commercial entity that uses fake photography in it's marketing may find that the money they saved was not worth the reputational damage done by the fact that they may be viewed by their target audience as being dishonest and deceptive in their communications. AI images styled as photography are not and never will be fungible with actual photographs, and those who fail to realise this may be making a serious error in the longer term.

Find Lee quite arrogant to be honest. AI will inevitably remove much of the need for photography but never completely. Humans love to go back, Hence why film came back. Hence why people buy handmade wood products instead of factory made, etc etc. There will always be a market for physical photography, certainly in the foreseeable.

Didn’t f-stoppers make an argument that the equipment isn’t the only thing you sell? The experience of the photographer is what creates photos?

Great debate. My 2¢ is that traditional photography in the future will be akin to shooting old school film today. Crafty with that "old school" digital photography feel. 100% agree with the guy on the left: auto mapping people's faces into a scene with ai will be defacto standard, widely adopted by the population. People will be born and never know digital photography, only ai.

I can really hear the AI audio in a lot of the videos out there today, including this one… I personally feel it would be better natural unless theres a specific reason why it’s to be edited in AI?

Let’s be real here.. AI is going to replace A LOT of people..

Is this a real vid or an AI production? Not yet but give the AI some time…

Let' talk about creativity in general. I love to read books at my spare time. But I will NEVER waste my time to read any books maded by AI. IDK why somebody want to read some bull**it compilation of stolen ideas maded by bunch of smart calculators. It only for extrageeks and AI fans. And I absolutely sure, what ALWAYS will be many clients, who want REAL photos. Fake meaningless pics are cheap, and it can work pretty good for advertisement in India or China but fashion industry never care much about money, right? If client want some cheap crap, stock photos would already killed photography.