Scene From a Backyard Party — Part 1
A backyard BBQ, somewhere in Kamloops, on a warm weekend evening…
Long-Time Acquaintance (LTA): Hey! Long time no see… So, what have you been up to these days?
Me: I‘ve been busy, building up my business…
LTA: Oh yeah? What do you do?
Me: So… you know how it is hard sometimes for people to find the words to say how they feel about the people and things they care about?
LTA:… Um. Yeah, okay?
Me: I give people the ability to express themselves through photography.
I lost 40,000 pics …
Like most people, I thought having my pictures saved as digital files meant my family’s memories were safe. Not long ago, without warning, my hard drive failed and I lost more than 40,000 photographs of our trips, birthdays and special events.
What I still had were images created on film, along with printed albums and framed family portraits already living in our home. They are now our only photographic record. That experience profoundly changed how I see photographs. We don’t need more digital files of ourselves. We need real photographs on our walls or in albums that carry meaning, history, and truth.
Has Artificial Intelligence changed photography forever?
IT’S EASY TO THINK THAT PHOTOGRAPHY IS DEAD considering how AI now rules the digital imagery seas. In a matter of seconds, it’s possible to create any image one can imagine. Want to climb Everest? You are there! Have Angeline Jolie join you! You will have a photograph to prove it …
But … Who the heck is going to believe it?