AI (updated)
There is something very exciting on my website…AI images I created in combination with images taken with my camera.
Maybe you are not a fan of AI. I have never been a fan of AI art either. Then I discovered Jonas Peterson and his first AI series, “Youth is Wasted on the Young” last year. You can find his IG account here. He uses his AI images to tell a story. Here is what he says about them that resonates with me:
“I’ve worked on these images, these people, for so long I’ve started making up stories about them, how they got here and how we ended up crossing paths. It may sound like hippie talk to you, but I believe they came to me for a reason, the way all good things do. As an artist you then choose whether you want to take that invitation or not, if you don’t, it moves on and evaporates from your mind. I’m so glad I listened, opened my door and invited them in”.
I believe photography is storytelling and AI allows photographers another tool to make their photographs come to life.
This post is about my new creative discovery, so, let me tell you how I happened to add this new tool to my photographic storytelling arsenal.
My dive into AI for my own work began in November, 2024 as I was putting together a new series called “Wild and Free”. I needed to create some room mockups for it and became frustrated after searching through the mockup software I had and looking online for new mockup templates. I couldn’t find anything I liked but then I took another look at Jonas Peterson’s print shop and realized he had created his room mockups with AI. So, I gave it a try!
The first “room” I created was for my image “Duo” of two Reticulated Giraffe in the Lewa Conservancy in northern Kenya.
I created my first AI “room” for Duo and titled it “The Giraffe Effect”.
My process with my new creative tool:
I begin with an image I have taken with my camera and I use that image as a reference for style, adjusting the strength and intensity.
I choose various effects for the image.
I give the AI “prompts for what I want. For The Giraffe Effect image my prompts included “a little girl in a blue dress with brown hair in a ponytail; in her room looking at a large picture in a white art deco frame. AI creates four images for me to choose from.
I choose the one I like best and then ask for more images like it. Eventually, I select the one I like best.
I download it and take it into Photoshop.
Once in Photoshop I clean up the image and remove anything I don’t like or add elements with Photoshop’s AI Generative Fill tool.
After I have the image the way I like it, I add my photograph that I took with my camera and place it within the AI image by creating a separate layer for it.
Next I mask out parts of it that need to be covered by elements within the AI image. In The Giraffe Effect, I masked out parts of the giraffe to allow the little girl to be standing in front of the picture frame.
Layering and blending two images together is referred to as making a composite. My AI images are all composites of my “real” photograph and the image I created with AI using that “real” photograph as a reference.
I am pleased that my AI images have been so well liked. I hope you enjoy them.
