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.

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.

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.