#16 AI Won’t Replace Photographers, But This Will
Welcome to issue 16. Today, I tell you about a new photography show, why obsessing about gear will probably leave you dissatisfied, and how (hopefully) not to have your photo jobs taken by AI.
An obsession with the American West
I’ve just dragged my restless soul back from Paris, where I spent a day with legendary photographer Pierre De Vallombreuse working on my upcoming American West exhibit. By some kind of cosmic administration error, I got Pierre to agree to help me narrow down 10 years of documenting the American West (more than 40,000 images…) to under 100 images. Needless to say, his merciless eyes were kept busy by the amount of inadequate work I brought up to his studio. Although, as he reminded me often, with the skeptical eye of someone who has spent way too much time looking at my work, all I need is 30 very good ones, and I have a show.
To my surprise, I left his studio quite cheery and excited. We succeeded in getting rid of the off-topic/overly commercial work, identified 50 strong images, and, even more importantly, unearthed a whole set of photos to go make. We need more details, and more portraits, and heartfelt photos where I’m not trying to make things look good, but just the way they are. A crutch from my commercial photography background…
I asked AI to compete against itself
While it is clear that LLMs and GenAI are seen as a threat in a lot of industries, it is unclear how that threat will actually materialize.
So in a twist of midnight genius, I thought, why not ask AI what it would do to not be replaced by itself?
A lot of the things GPT spewed out were already pretty evident, but there were a handful of things I needed to read again, because, as much as I hate to admit it, it made a good point. I'm sharing the three most resonant bits and why they struck me below.
ChatGPT prompt : If you were a commercial photographer, how would you stay relevant against AI generated imagery? It seems like your clients could just use AI to create their campaign images?
Answer: Good question. AI-generated imagery is getting crazy good, but if I were a commercial photographer, I’d focus on what AI can’t do (yet) and what clients actually value beyond just “having an image.” Here’s how I’d stay relevant:
Brands want real stories, not just pretty pictures. I’d focus on shooting real people, real places, real moments—things AI can’t fabricate convincingly.
Alex: This sounds like fluff, but there is insight hidden in plain sight. Yes, GenAI can’t (as of now) produce very convincing humans, especially in video form, but the takeaway here is to really lean into imperfect imagery, to use a documentarian eye, not a commercial eye. Document human processes (athlete training, artisan working) to add even more weight to the work.
Offer Strategic Visual Thinking, Not Just Photography.
Many clients don’t just need “a nice image”; they need a visual identity that aligns with their brand.
Alex: I’ve heard this argument before where folks claim that GenAI, at the end of the day, still needs someone to tell it what to do — to “art direct it.” While I agree with the idea behind it, I’m not seeing any of my peers mastering how to direct AI tools… So in the end, it’s the early GenAI adopters, who were not necessarily art directors, who are best positioned to take on the new GenAI director roles. The takeaway here is either to master those tools, or to position yourself above the food chain, where you are an advisor to the marketing department and you can either help them cast GenAI directors or steer them toward real photography/filmmaking if that aligns with their strategy.
Clients don’t just hire photographers for the images; they hire them for the experience of working together.
Alex: This resonates a lot because we commercial photographers have gotten lazy at client servicing. The presentation/image delivery/invoicing suite of tools is making the process feel very commoditized. I draw parallels here with the experience of staying in a very nice boutique hotel, where it feels like the hoteliers “get you.” Everything feels as though it was made for you, and the entire experience is about making your experience easy and personalized. We need to bring that bespoke energy to our clients. For that reason, I’m doubling down on that in 2025.
It seems then as if the real enemy is complacency, not GenAI. Those of us who won’t update our skills, our tools, our ways of doing, are the ones who will be bulldozed by progress. If your work feels generic or transactional, AI can and will do it faster. I hate to say it, but the real question then becomes: What are WE doing to stay ahead?
The Emotional Language of Camera Gear
These have to be the two questions I get the most…
What gear do you use?
What camera should I get?
My go-to answers?
“Get the best camera you can afford…”
This is helpful because I don’t want to see folks getting into debt to buy the latest camera only to realize, one year down the road, that they didn't need such a capable tool for what they do.
”Spend most of your budget on the lens, not the camera.”
This will always be paramount. Think of the camera as the engine in the car, and the lens as the tires. A massive engine won’t get you far on worn out tires, at the first corner, you’ll go straight into a telephone pole. But a mighty little engine, on high-end performance tires, will take you anywhere fast, with a big grin on your face.
This took me a whole year to learn. I started my professional career on a beat down Canon 5D Mark I (still known for the bright, soft colors it produces) and a Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L. The “L” stands for “Luxury” in the Canon lens range, by the way. I had a five-year-old third-hand camera body and a brand spanking new 35mm prime lens that cost twice what the camera did. With that kit, I shot a lot of iconic work.
But in the end, I should make clear that while I do think about camera gear, I don’t think about it from a technical standpoint. I do think about how it influences my work, however. I’m more interested in the correlation between using a specific camera or lens and the work I produce with it.
The insight here is the following: Focus on the feeling surrounding the gear.
How does using a 15mm vs a 400mm change the way you see the world?
What happens when you look through the viewfinder of that medium format camera?
I have this Hasselblad XPan, and when I grab it I feel like a member of the Bang-Bang Club, about to be parachuted into a war-torn neighborhood in the suburbs of Baghdad.
Because what we do is so intangible, and often carries no meaning except to us, we get better by being more and more in touch with our feelings. It seems like most of our adult life experience is about numbing feelings, but as creatives we have to do the opposite and defend those seemingly anecdotal impressions because they create fuel for our work.
If you feel a certain way grabbing that old film rangefinder, go grab it, and let it take you places. Producing personal work is ultimately what gets us hired. To drive the point home, GMC ended up running my “BTS/for fun” film shots in their TV commercial instead of my more polished digital shots. It seems like the moments I captured with the BTS camera resonated more with the client.
Perhaps because I was in a more relaxed state of mind when I was shooting those? I couldn’t tell you.
All I know is that being in tune with the way cameras make me feel has led to more breakthroughs that I can count.
Watching
Palawan, Southern Philippines — Pierre De Vallombreuse told me that it took him 35 years of going back to this valley to make this photograph. I believe him. Now, I need a print for my new studio.
This newsletter is edited by Danny Smith
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Thank you for sharing these very interesting thoughts which make me think about and open lots of doors for me. I'm curious to know what type of printer you're going to buy for your studio because I'm looking for one too 😄 People don't talk enough about the importance of seeing your photos in print and not just on screen.
What you say about the correlation between using specific gear and the work you produce with it very much resonates with me. The first time I went to Portugal, I rented this little Leica Q2 because I wanted to travel light, and it opened a new way of seeing and shooting for me. It forced me to stay for the entire trip at 35mm, a focal length I had never used before, which led me to compositions I never would have approached otherwise. And it was so small I could have it on me the whole time no matter what we were doing. But yeah, all the endless talk about gear I see every day seldom includes this, and from where I stand now this is what seems most important about it.