Marie at 1 Write Way

Lens-Artists Challenge #302 – Artificial Intelligence and Photography

In this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, John of Journeys with JohnBo asks us to consider the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in photography, if it has any role. Specifically:

The question for today is to what extent AI makes the work something other than photography and at what point should it be identified as such.

Initially I thought I’d pass on this challenge. I already have a disdain for AI in how grifters have been using it to flood markets such as Amazon with AI-generated “garbage ebooks.” (See the Constance Grady’s article on this subject here.)

But after reading a few responses to John’s challenges, I saw that AI could be fun, simply fun, to use. And if people are honest about their use of AI, particularly in photography and writing, then at least we can see how it might function as a tool.

John’s challenge also stimulated discussion about what kind of post-editing photographers might use. I have not read every response to the challenge, but it seems that most of the photographers are like me: for example, I might crop a photo for a better close-up of my subject, or I might brighten the colors if the image seems murky. What I want to do in post-editing is try to help the viewer see what I saw with my naked eye, as close to Nature as possible. I don’t discuss post-editing, but if I was to do more, like, for example, take two photos and superimpose them, then of course, I would acknowledge that.

A photo of Raji superimposed on a photo taken at the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge.

Did you know that WordPress has an AI Assistant? If you use Block Editor (which generally I don’t), about halfway down the right-hand sidebar under “Post,” you’ll see AI Assistant and an option to create an AI Featured Image. (Many thanks to Donna of Wind Kisses for alerting me to this feature.) I created the below image using the words “orange cat on beach” and saved it to my photos for upload.

AI-generated image of orange cat on beach.

Looking at some AI-generated images shared by the Lens-Artists team, I started to think about book cover designs. When I needed a cover for my short story “Love Me Tender,” I went to Canva which I had used to create cards. The hardest part about self-publishing my story was finding a book cover I liked. Many of the images offered by Canva are free and require no attribution, but Canva requires a subscription if you want to edit an image.

So what about AI? Thinking about my novel Clemency, I decided to see what AI could provide me. The central character in Clemency is a young woman who has been convicted of killing her live-in boyfriend. The setting for much of the novel is a small coastal town that has seen better days. The opening scenes include the young woman appearing bloodied and carrying a knife.

With that info, what kind of cover could AI generate? I provided the text: “young woman in shorts and a bloody t-shirt standing on a beach at night.” (Note: all the following images are AI-generated unless otherwise noted.)

Ah … no. This woman doesn’t look like she’s in any kind of danger or distress. Maybe I need fewer words. How about “young woman, bloody t-shirt standing on a beach at night.”

Oh, come on! Either the shirt is drenched in blood or AI thinks I mean blood-red. Determined to make AI work for me, I continued with various prompts until I got to these two.

I’d be tempted to go with the first one because that’s obviously blood on the woman’s shirt, but I don’t want her facing the camera. In my mind, that is not what the main character looks like. Besides, there’s something incongruous about an bloody shirt on an otherwise unharmed woman. While the second image doesn’t show the kind of bloody shirt I want, I can see blood on the woman’s arm. She also looks vulnerable.

For novels, I usually prefer book cover designs that are drawings or paintings, not photographs. Let’s see if AI can help me with that. So I asked for an “illustration of a young woman on a beach at night.” Just keeping it simple.

Eye roll. I’m about ready to give up. Never mind the two or three moons, but the woman has three arms. I could lose readers with this one.

One last try: “illustration of the back of a young woman wearing a bloody shirt holding a steak knife on a beach at night.”

I give up.

I have other alternatives, one of which would be to take photographs of a beach near me and then run the best photograph through filters until I get the image I want. If I’m lucky, maybe there’ll be a young woman at the beach wearing a bloody shirt and holding a steak knife.

Many thanks to John for this fascinating challenge. I encourage you all to give the WordPress AI Assistant a try if you haven’t already. Just be honest and have fun.

If you decide to play, please be sure to link back to John’s original post and include Lens-Artists in your tags so you can be found. If you’d like to participate in the challenge responses each week but aren’t sure how to get started, please check here. A big thank-you to Sofia for the lovely challenge to go Floral last week. Y’all know I love any opportunity to show off my flowers.

I leave you with a real photo, no AI used.

A boy and his brush.

Marie A Bailey

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43 responses to “Lens-Artists Challenge #302 – Artificial Intelligence and Photography”

  1. Interesting topic. I’ve played around with AI just to see what all the fuss is about but that’s about it. Although I can see why someone would prefer to use it rather than pay an illustrator or create an image themselves, I do feel that AI threatens the livelihood of working artists and that doesn’t feel right. Also, I feel uncomfortable with the default images AI typically creates: white, slim, and sexy (I know you asked for “young” so that was expected) That being said, AI is here to stay so I guess we’d better get used to it.

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    • Janis, I appreciate your concern about how AI might impact artists’ livelihoods (it’s definitely having a negative impact on writers). My brief experience with AI suggests that it might take a better skillset that what I have to produce a satisfactory image … so perhaps AI could be a tool in the kit of working artists. My main concern is that people will use AI deceptively and deviously. Well, we know they already are :-(

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  3. So fun Marie! I loved your approach and am so glad you decided to join us. You got very close to what you wanted for your cover, never mind the three arms LOL. And your beautiful cat image tops anything AI might create!

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  4. Marie, I think that using AI for fun is the only way I get any satisfaction. I wonder whether AI cannot produce a cover with the word blood. I suppose some bots will not do that. Anyway, I loved your perseverance with the various attempts. The cat on the beach was fantastic, even though it was clearly not real. Maybe that’s the next book title for you. :)

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    • Egidio, you make a good point that maybe the bots in AI are designed to not do things like blood. Now that I think about it, probably having blood in a book cover design is not a good idea ;-) I definitely liked the cat on a beach … much better than my own composite :-)

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  5. Marie, thanks for joining in. You’ve got a great use for AI images in illustrating for a cover. It’s too bad that the programs aren’t quite ready for “prime time”. Though they aren’t quite what you need, the women (aside from the one with three arms), are better than some of the results I’ve seen in looking like photographs.

    I wonder what’s up with AI moons. I couldn’t get Luminar Neo’s AI to generate a sky with a round moon. It always created an oval. >grin<

    Glad you had fun with your experiments.

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    • Thanks, John! It seemed that the simpler my descriptions, the better the image. I did like some of the images but they just wouldn’t work for my novel. And that’s just weird about the moons. How hard can it be to create a round moon? :-)

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  7. I’ve spent (wasted) a lot of time trying to get useful AI images for book covers too. Any time there’s a human figure involved, things get weird, and the images all have a strange air about them. I did manage to get a decent one for my unpublished novella collection, Mercy Beach, but only because it has no people on it.

    Seems like we have a long way to go before AI is up to snuff. Google AI recommends that people eat plenty of rocks, which pretty much sums it all up. 🤣

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  8. The only AI I’ve tried was over a year ago and it was ChatGPT. I asked it to write a little story based on a few words and it did. I don’t remember it being able to generate images for the story.

    I’m leery of photos that AI creates. As if our reality couldn’t become more skewed and I hesitate to encourage any AI program to dream up anything that might appear real causing confusion.

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    • I remember that story you created with ChatGPT. It was like a children’s story, I think. One of the photographers on the Lens-Artists team noted that if AI is used, then it’s no longer photography. I agree with that.

      LIke you, I’m leery of photos that have been manipulated beyond minor editing. It’s one thing to edit a photo so the subject looks as it does in real life; it’s another thing to edit a photo until it has little to no resemblance to the subject in real life. At a minimum, photographers should be honest about using AI or other major editing tools. I don’t like being duped into thinking something is real when it is not.

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  10. Very interesting, Marie. I’m glad you shared your attempts with AI. And I am not a little displeased that you could not get what you wanted ;-)

    I refuse to use it; I don’t want to be part of the masses that help AI improve itself. :D

    Of course, I probably use the damn thing in ways I don’t even know but as they say, ignorance is bliss!

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  11. I appreciate your willingness to experiment with AI. I haven’t used it. I know a lot of the dVerse poets are into it for their illustrations, but I’m not particularly impressed with the results–as with the results you got. I’m glad you were rolling your eyes. 😉

    I’m excited by your forthcoming novel!

    Love your “real” photo! 💙

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  12. I admit, you have me dying laughing. I am so glad you gave it a go. It is fun to see what the assistant comes up with and I agree, a few have been way off the mark. Great experimentation, and I do love the cat one, but AI cats will never purr like Raji. You outdid yourself Marie. Loved the read, and the experiments!

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  13. Wonderful post, Marie. It’s the kind of experience I’ve had so many times. As soon as you are more specific in what you are looking for the more AI just frustrates you. I’ve found it impossible to have a nice simple photo of a ceramic coffee mug…!

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  16. I don’t have good feelings about AI, especially in art or writing. We are already lied to so much. Consider the AI ads of celebrities bragging on the product, but their mouths do not sync to the dialog or the photos are from decades ago.

    I can see the draw of using Grammarly, for example. I could take the suggestions for phrasing something differently, perhaps being more friendly or being more scholarly, but when does it stop being your work?

    I’ve been playing with Blue Mountain cards this year and letting it generate something to write as it is hard to figure out something to say outside of “Happy Birthday!” But to be honest, everything comes out sounding kind of the same. I think, but don’t know, that anyone who knows me knows it’s AI generated, even though I change things in the AI script.

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    • It’s wise to be cautious about AI. There may be a place for it as a tool, but it’s sad that so many people are using it to misinform and fool the public.

      I use Grammarly (the free version), but I disregard its suggestions more often than not. Still, I have a tendency to be verbose, and Grammarly has helped me curb that a bit ;-)

      It’s been a long time since I used Blue Mountain cards. I try to send “real” cards for birthdays and holidays, but it is so hard to find cards that are unique. I’ve tried making my own, but … ugh. It’s a lot of work just to say “Happy Birthday! Have a great day!” ;-)

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