There’s a word that I believe every single photographer should hate: creator. It’s a word that lumps all of us in with videographers, musicians, etc. in a way that’s designed to eventually provide assets for marketers for free. Let’s call this what it really is: it’s an assault on photographers and photography because everyone thinks that they should be entitled to free images. And at the same time, we’re all being trained to create photographs that all fit a certain narrative that works on social media. But really, every photographer should hate this word and this way of doing things.
I’m writing this article after reading the words a CEO wrote to me recently. They go as follows:
“Now, we are all aware of the magnitude that AI is used everywhere in the society. We do not believe that AI will replace creators. Great creators have this extraordinary skill to create content based on a clear vision.”
There’s a lot wrong with this statement. Besides referring to photographers as creators, it says that we’re all making content.
Content is not art. Art and content are two completely different things.
Art is made and based on emotion and designed to express a feeling of some sort. It requires a creative skillset and its primary purpose isn’t necessarily for capitalistic means. Its primary purpose is for expression.
Art can surely be commissioned for capitalistic means, however. And when that happens, it’s meant to have a long-lasting effect of some sort.
Content, on the other hand, is primarily meant for capitalistic means. It’s also designed to disappear after a while.
On social media, people post content that’s meant to be within a feed.
The feed is the problem: you’re being given things to digest in small amounts over time until you become bloated and full.
A museum’s walls and galleries aren’t meant to be a feed. They’re a full meal with various courses and specialties.
When someone uses the word “creator,” I encourage you to stop them. Instead, make them say the name of the type of artist. It’s all of our collective responsibilities to get it into the heads of others that we cannot be replaced by AI.
This, of course, bring me to my ultimate statement: we, as photographers, really have to get very weird. We have to start making work that AI can’t replace and that people can’t understand. On the other hand, we need to get a whole lot more innovative with how we make images.
We, as photographers, need to stop idly capturing moments. Instead, we need to create moments with feelings on camera. And there are a ton of ways to do that while capturing the moments that we’re seeing.
The genres that I see this problem being the most difficult is with wildlife, landscapes, portraits, etc. We need to stop simply just pointing a camera at a subject and pressing the shutter while we’re in aperture priority.
Photographers: those who came before us had the opportunity to do that. But we don’t.
Go do something innovative.