2024 09 07
Art is making choices, argues Ted Chiang in his recent piece on Ai for The New Yorker, which Iāve seen making the rounds on social media. I always find that, after a shoot day in which Iām typically producing thousands of images, I am both mentally and physically exhausted. The thing that doesnāt get as much attention when creating art is the sheer brain power required while doing it. Itās a never-ending flow of small and large decisions which compound and add up, eventually becoming the final product.
The original quote in Tedās piece which caught my attention was this:
āThe task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.ā
Reading this makes so much sense and helps to explain why Iām quite negative on all things artificial intelligence. This also reminded me that I pay for a New Yorker subscription and should give the full text a read, which you should also do if you have access to it! Upon doing so, a few more quotes which I enjoyed are as follows:
āart requires making choices at every scale; the countless small-scale choices made during implementation are just as important to the final product as the few large-scale choices made during the conception. It is a mistake to equate ālarge-scaleā with āimportantā when it comes to the choices made when creating art; the interrelationship between the large scale and the small scale is where the artistry lies.ā
āGenerative A.I. appeals to people who think they can express themselves in a medium without actually working in that medium. But the creators of traditional novels, paintings, and films are drawn to those art forms because they see the unique expressive potential that each medium affords. It is their eagerness to take full advantage of those potentialities that makes their work satisfying, whether as entertainment or as art.ā
ā¦as Charlie Parker said: if you donāt live it, it wonāt come out of your horn.
-Clayton
With just a bit more data collection, we can make the world a better place! Chicago, Illinois. July, 2024. Ā© Clayton Hauck
Art is making choices, argues Ted Chiang in his recent piece on Ai for The New Yorker, which Iāve seen making the rounds on social media. I always find that, after a shoot day in which Iām typically producing thousands of images, I am both physically and mentally exhausted. The thing that doesnāt get as much attention when creating art is the sheer brain power required while doing it. Itās a never-ending flow of small and large decisions which compound and add up, eventually becoming the final product.
The original quote in Tedās piece which caught my attention was this:
āThe task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.ā
Reading this makes so much sense and helps to explain why Iām quite negative on all things artificial intelligence. This also reminded me that I pay for a New Yorker subscription and should give the full text a read, which you should also do if you have access to it! Upon doing so, a few more quotes which I enjoyed are as follows:
āart requires making choices at every scale; the countless small-scale choices made during implementation are just as important to the final product as the few large-scale choices made during the conception. It is a mistake to equate ālarge-scaleā with āimportantā when it comes to the choices made when creating art; the interrelationship between the large scale and the small scale is where the artistry lies.ā
āGenerative A.I. appeals to people who think they can express themselves in a medium without actually working in that medium. But the creators of traditional novels, paintings, and films are drawn to those art forms because they see the unique expressive potential that each medium affords. It is their eagerness to take full advantage of those potentialities that makes their work satisfying, whether as entertainment or as art.ā
ā¦as Charlie Parker said: if you donāt live it, it wonāt come out of your horn.
-Clayton
2024 03 30
It finally happened ā I came across AI-generated art that I really like.
That said, the human writing is what makes it stand out, along with an outlandish subject which makes the weirdness of the AI benefit the story instead of detract.
Things are moving fast. Good luck out there, my friends.
-Clayton
Artist & designer Craighton Berman in his studio in Chicagoās Albany Park neighborhood. February, 2024. Ā© Clayton Hauck
It finally happened ā I came across AI-generated art that I really like.
That said, the human writing is what makes it stand out, along with an outlandish subject which makes the weirdness of the AI benefit the story instead of detract.
Things are moving fast. Good luck out there, my friends.
-Clayton
2024 03 02
AI sources its āinspirationā from existing imagery. They grab millions, if not billions, of images and feed them into a massive neural computer network. Many, if not most, of the images are made by artists with no interest in training a computer model. Some of the images are illegal. Child pornography that got sucked into the system in the corporate drive to automate systems to train other systems on the biggest pool of imagery possible.
What interests me is what happens in 5-10 years when (if?) most content is AI generated. It will become a Digital Doom Loop of artificial reality. AI systems training themselves on artificial material made by other AI systems ad infinitum. Language will shift based on what the computers interpret to be language. If we canāt understand the computers, weāll lose our grip on them, so weāll be forced to bend to their automated will.
Anyway, have a nice weekend.
-Clayton
An outtake from my āKeep it 100ā portrait sessions. Chicago, Illinois. January, 2024. Ā© Clayton Hauck
AI sources its āinspirationā from existing imagery. They grab millions, if not billions, of images and feed them into a massive neural computer network. Many, if not most, of the images are made by artists with no interest in training a computer model. Some of the images are illegal. Child pornography that got sucked into the system in the corporate drive to automate systems to train other systems on the biggest pool of imagery possible.
What interests me is what happens in 5-10 years when (if?) most content is AI generated. It will become a Digital Doom Loop of artificial reality. AI systems training themselves on artificial material made by other AI systems ad infinitum. Language will shift based on what the computers interpret to be language. If we canāt understand the computers, weāll lose our grip on them, so weāll be forced to bend to their automated will.
Anyway, have a nice weekend.
-Clayton
2024 03 01
Tyler Perry is a billionaire and massively successful filmmaker. This is why, when he recently announced heās pausing plans to expand his Atlanta studio because of AI, people listened.
Tyler Perry Puts $800M Studio Expansion on Hold After Seeing OpenAIās Sora: āJobs Are Going to Be Lostā
I saw a wide range of responses to the headline online, from AI bros proclaiming movies will soon be fully automated, to others upset heās not investing a billion dollars into a film studio as a way to combat the rise of AI. Regardless of what you think about the headline, my guess is that the reality of his decision to halt work after surely spending millions of dollars on the project was made more for exesting economic reasons than because Sora released a few automated videos that look like a high end video game render. These AI videos, released only by the company that producing the renders and surely only gives us the best of the best, do look quite remarkable at a glance, on a phone, in low resolution ā and yes, it clearly shows where things are heading ā but I also donāt think weāre going to automate away our arts and entertainment despite it feeling like this is where we are heading.
Currently, the AI stories making the headlines are how good it is at making photos, videos, writing stories, graphic design, etc ā¦ all the fun and creative things humans enjoy doing. Whatās less exciting to read about is how AI can replace the less glamorous professions such as tax preparation, legal copyrighting, software coding, logistics.
Thereās no doubt AI is coming for all of us and will massively transform the world in the coming decade. Just look at the NVIDIA stock price and youāll see this is what the stock market believes. I think the AI revolution is already transforming corporate America in less obvious ways, namely employee headcount. Corporations are letting go and/or pausing hiring as they figure out all the ways to best implement AI into their corporate structure while replacing as many humans possible. The economy still feels relatively okay, but a storm is a brewinā.
Scott Galloway put out a nice piece (linked below) equating the corporate use of AI to the human use of diet drugs. We all do it, we just donāt like to talk about it.
Corporate Ozempic
I just wish I could automate a way to not think about AI so damn much these days.
-Clayton
Wow, itās been a lot of vertical images latelyā¦ Txa Txa Supper Club #30 at See You Soon Chicago. January, 2024. Ā© Clayton Hauck
Tyler Perry is a billionaire and massively successful filmmaker. This is why, when he recently announced heās pausing plans to expand his Atlanta studio because of AI, people listened.
ā”ļø Tyler Perry Puts $800M Studio Expansion on Hold After Seeing OpenAIās Sora: āJobs Are Going to Be Lostā
I saw a wide range of responses to the headline online, from AI bros proclaiming movies will soon be fully automated, to others upset heās not investing a billion dollars into a film studio as a way to combat the rise of AI. Regardless of what you think about the headline, my guess is that the reality of his decision to halt work after surely spending millions of dollars on the project was made more for exesting economic reasons than because Sora released a few automated videos that look like a high end video game render. These AI videos, released only by the company that is producing the renders (and surely only gives us the best of the best), do look quite remarkable at a glance, on a phone, in low resolution ā and yes, it clearly shows where things are heading ā but I also donāt think weāre going to fully automate away our arts and entertainment despite it sort of feeling like this is where we are heading.
Currently, the AI stories making the headlines are how good it is at making photos, videos, writing stories, graphic design, etc ā¦ all the fun and creative things humans enjoy doing. Whatās less exciting to read about is how AI can replace the less glamorous professions such as tax preparation, legal copyrighting, software coding, logistics.
Thereās no doubt in my mind that AI is coming for all of us and will massively transform the world in the coming decade (if not this year). Just look at the NVIDIA stock price and youāll see this is what the stock market believes. I think the AI revolution (a new Industrial Revolution) is already transforming corporate America in less obvious ways: namely employee headcount. Corporations are letting go and/or pausing hiring as they figure out all the ways to best implement AI into their corporate structure while replacing as many humans possible. The economy still feels relatively okay, but a storm is a brewinā. These changes arenāt yet mainstream news stories but I think soon everyone will start to feel the effects of someone they know losing a job because it is, at least attempting to be, outsourced to artificial intelligence.
Scott Galloway put out a nice piece (linked below) equating the corporate use of AI to the human use of diet drugs. We all do it, we just donāt like to talk about it.
ā”ļø Corporate Ozempic
I just wish I could automate a way to not think about AI so damn much these days.
-Clayton
PS - want to dig into this even further and get even more depressed? This video is worth your time and paints a largely bleak picture about our not-too-distant futures
PPS - My CPU is a neural net processor; a learning computer!
2024 02 23
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 thereās a bit more to this shocking development.
Companies needing high quality imagery for whatever reason often donāt like spending money on said high quality imagery. Theyāll reach out and ask if we can do it for free since itās our hobby anyway and usually we say, sure, weād love to help with that, but itās impossible because the pesky talent (you know, the people in the photosāthe models) wonāt agree to it! They demand money every single time ā itās 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. Itās nice, but the companies donāt always love it.
Luckily for the companies, Artificial Intelligence is here to save them from bankruptcy. They are now experimenting ā behind the scenes in their secret tech labs ā 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 weāll 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.
Iām excited about this! Experience is the most valuable tool in any hobbyist photographerās tool kit and Iām about to have it in excess!
ā Oh, shit, Iām late for my shift at Arbyās.
-Clayton
PS- every blog post thus far has been AI generated. Clayton is on vacation in Montevideo.
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. Ā© 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 thereās a bit more to this shocking development.
Companies needing high quality imagery for whatever reason often donāt like spending money on said high quality imagery. Theyāll reach out and ask if we can do it for free since itās our hobby anyway and usually we say, sure, weād love to help with that, but itās impossible because the pesky talent (you know, the people in the photosāthe models) wonāt agree to it! They demand money every single time ā itās 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. Itās nice, but the companies donāt always love it.
Luckily for the companies, Artificial Intelligence is here to save them from bankruptcy. They are now experimenting ā behind the scenes in their secret tech labs ā 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 weāll 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.
Iām excited about this! Experience is the most valuable tool in any hobbyist photographerās tool kit and Iām about to have it in excess!
ā Oh, shit, Iām late for my shift at Arbyās.
-Clayton
PS- every blog post thus far has been AI generated. Clayton is on vacation in Montevideo.
2024 02 20
Friend and fellow photographer Jack Garland recently posted this great short feature on photographer Matt Black which got me inspired in a number of ways.
Preface: the main reason for this post was to share the piece, which is linked below, so skip ahead and watch that unless you want to also read me rambling about myself for the remainder. It is my therapy session (blog), after all.
Feeling at a crossroads in my own career due to the business of commercial photography being in a confused state, with AI on the rise, less work and lower budgets generally, and becoming older myself, I spend a lot of time scheming on what I should be focusing my time on. This isnāt a very efficient way to get things done, all the thinking, that is, but I tend to go all-in on things once I decide itās the way to go so it is perhaps smart to think a bit before jumping into the deep end.
In no particular order, some thoughts that struck me while watching the video were: I should shoot more black & white. Iām always so drawn to color but itās probably best to expand my horizons and experiment more; traveling and photographing is something I really, really love and maybe should make this more of my focus. Itās a compromise though in many ways (time consuming, being away from people, expensive, no guaranteed success) so I always resist dedicating more time to it and taking it seriously; traveling the entire state of Illinois might be a fun compromise and interesting challenge. Maybe a good photo book project I can put a few yearsā effort into while not being too far from home. It would greatly aide in my eventual run for governor as well; maybe itās time to cut the commercial work off for a while and figure out what most resonates with me as a person. Live as an artist. Make work for myself; do more video work just like this video piece. It was really well done and exactly the kind of thing that inspired me to become a photographer from the start; take the wandering-man-with-camera video angle many people are doing on youtube to much success but elevating it a bit, getting deeper and more artistic with it; write more, like Matt in the video. Write about what Iām experiencing. Maybe this is where Iām already heading with this blog? Maybe it becomes part of a photo book project? Maybe the writing becomes the work?; get more invested into the world of art photography and open a photo book store. Itās an idea Iāve been stewing on for a while now and one I still like. Creating a home for photography-obsessed people such as myself seems like a smart move in many ways, while also being a bit of a vague business model and perhaps less sustainable as it needs to be while sucking up all my time in the process.
Clearly, lots of thinking going on in the old brain of mine. I thought it would be nice to get some of the thoughts down on paper and toss them into the world. Surely I will expand on some of them in the coming weeks.
-Clayton
A tree sits alongside River Rd, slightly illuminated from a passing vehicle. River Grove, Illinois. January, 2024. Ā© Clayton Hauck
This image was extended to accomodate a square crop using AI and was edited in my interpretation of a Matt Black / Jack Garland style.
Friend and fellow photographer Jack Garland recently posted this great short feature on photographer Matt Black which got me inspired in a number of ways.
Preface: the main reason for this post was to share the piece, which is linked below, so skip ahead and watch that unless you want to also read me rambling about myself for the remainder. It is my therapy session (blog), after all.
Feeling at a crossroads in my own career due to the business of commercial photography being in a confused state, with AI on the rise, less work and lower budgets generally, and becoming older myself, I spend a lot of time scheming on what I should be focusing my time on. This isnāt a very efficient way to get things done, all the thinking, that is, but I tend to go all-in on things once I decide itās the way to go so it is perhaps smart to think a bit before jumping into the deep end.
In no particular order, some thoughts that struck me while watching the video were: I should shoot more black & white. Iām always so drawn to color but itās probably best to expand my horizons and experiment more; Traveling and photographing is something I really, really love and maybe should make this more of my focus. Itās a compromise though in many ways (time consuming, being away from people, expensive, no guaranteed success) so I always resist dedicating more time to it and taking it seriously; Traveling the entire state of Illinois might be a fun compromise and interesting challenge. Maybe a good photo book project I can put a few yearsā effort into while not being too far from home. It would greatly aide in my eventual run for governor as well; Maybe itās time to cut the commercial work off for a while and figure out what most resonates with me as a person. Live as an artist. Make work solely for myself; Do more video work just like this video piece. It was really well done and exactly the kind of thing that inspired me to become a photographer from the start; Take the wandering-man-with-camera video angle many people are doing on youtube to much success but elevating it a bit, getting deeper and more artistic with it; Write more, like Matt in the video. Write about what Iām experiencing. Maybe this is where Iām already heading with this blog? Maybe it becomes part of a photo book project? Maybe the writing becomes the work?; Get more invested into the world of art photography and open a photo book store. Itās an idea Iāve been stewing on for a while now and one I still like. Creating a home for photography-obsessed people such as myself seems like a smart move in many ways, while also being a bit of a vague business model and perhaps less sustainable as it needs to be while sucking up all my time in the process.
Clearly, lots of thinking going on in the old brain of mine. I thought it would be nice to get some of the thoughts down on paper and toss them into the world. Surely I will expand on some of them in the coming weeks, months, or years.
-Clayton
Beyond the video above, hereās a link to another great talk featuring wisdom and images from the talented Matt Black.
2024 01 09
Enter: Artificial Intelligence
Surely, Iām going to talk about AI quite a lot here in the weeks ahead. Itās a subject that takes up a lot of my brain space yet still donāt quite know what to think of it all. One real world result has already been an attempt to diversify my income away from strictly photogrpahy, as I do feel relatively pessimistic my job will still be around in a few years time.
Imagineers!
I moved to rebrand āphotographersā to āimagineers,ā largely because I wanted to be an Imagineer when I was a kid. Seriously, though, humanitiesā relationship to The Image has been evolving drastically over the last few decades and thereās no telling where it will be in two decades more. My hunch, is that weāre fucked.
So how does AI relate to this image?
I like this photo! It does lack a little bit of detail, some humanity perhaps, to really make it sparkle, but itās nice. Part of why I like it is a bit behind-the-scenes.
Firstly, the image was made with a ~20mp digitial RicohGR3x, however, it is stitched together from 4-5 captures (pano-style), thus giving it Resolution and Perspective that isnāt Typical (and kind of looks a bit more like a wider lensed-medium format camera, partly because of the square crop).
Secondly, I used the Adobe āgenerative fillā aka AI to extend the top and bottom portions of the frame, as there was no information there. While this is a super simple example of whatās possible with AI, the texture on the street doesnāt exist in real life and was a choice made by the computers based on thousands or millions of other images.
Soon, 100% of images will be fully generated by AI and humanity will live in peace.
Enjoy!
-Clayton
Composited image of house on street in Chicago. December, 2023. Ā© Clayton Hauck
Enter: Artificial Intelligence
Surely, Iām going to talk about AI quite a lot here in the weeks ahead. Itās a subject that takes up a lot of my brain space yet still donāt quite know what to think of it all. One real world result has already been an attempt to diversify my income away from strictly photogrpahy, as I do feel relatively pessimistic my job will still be around in a few years time.
Imagineers!
I moved to rebrand āphotographersā to āimagineers,ā largely because I wanted to be an Imagineer when I was a kid. Seriously, though, humanitiesā relationship to The Image has been evolving drastically over the last few decades and thereās no telling where it will be in two decades more. My hunch, is that weāre fucked.
So how does AI relate to this image?
I like this photo! It does lack a little bit of detail, some humanity perhaps, to really make it sparkle, but itās nice. Part of why I like it is a bit behind-the-scenes.
Firstly, the image was made with a ~20mp digitial RicohGR3x, however, it is stitched together from 4-5 captures (pano-style), thus giving it resolution and perspective that isnāt typical (and kind of looks a bit more like a wider lensed-medium format camera, partly because of the square crop).
Secondly, I used the Adobe āgenerative fillā aka AI to extend the top and bottom portions of the frame, as there was no information there. While this is a boring example of whatās possible with AI, the texture on the street doesnāt exist in real life and was a choice made mostly by the computers based on thousands or millions of other images and then partially by me, in choosing one of three I most liked.
Soon, 100% of images will be fully generated by AI and humanity will live in peace.
Enjoy!
-Clayton