2024 02 23

Snowy catalpa tree on our corner which I photograph roughly two-hundred times each year. [this image was expanded using generative AI] Chicago, Illinois. January, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Just wrapped up my taxes and was shocked and amazed to see my commercial photography income was substantially down last year. This led me to think some thoughts about why this is happening. Is it simply a matter of me becoming old and stale? Likely, yes, however there’s a bit more to this shocking development.

Companies needing high quality imagery for whatever reason often don’t like spending money on said high quality imagery. They’ll reach out and ask if we can do it for free since it’s our hobby anyway and usually we say, sure, we’d love to help with that, but it’s impossible because the pesky talent (you know, the people in the photos—the models) won’t agree to it! They demand money every single time — it’s wild! So what happens is we end up producing these projects for money, which allows us to pay bills, eat, and generally function within society. It’s nice, but the companies don’t always love it.

Luckily for the companies, Artificial Intelligence is here to save them from bankruptcy. They are now experimenting — behind the scenes in their secret tech labs — with using AI to become their models! With a fully digital human, created from jumbling up hundreds of other humans into a completely new and soulless entity, they can then hire their digital models for zero dollars and we’ll finally be able to agree to their requests to produce high quality imagery for our portfolios or for the experience or for a promise of payment on a future project that never materializes.

I’m excited about this! Experience is the most valuable tool in any hobbyist photographer’s tool kit and I’m about to have it in excess! 

— Oh, shit, I’m late for my shift at Arby’s.

-Clayton

PS- every blog post thus far has been AI generated. Clayton is on vacation in Montevideo.