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I’ve had a couple of days out in recent weeks where we’ve been exploring a river bed near our house. The most recent was with a couple of friends, one of whom happens to be a geologist. It was great to wander around a 200m stretch of river and get excited about the rocks and stones, using my camera as a tool to look more closely at these finds. I came back with some interesting ‘record’ pictures of my discoveries, a few wider views showing context, and some ideas to motivate me to return in the near future.
That motivation is key for me. It’s the hook that prompts me to get out again and have another look and see what more treasure I might find. And this is just a tiny part of our local area.
While I was processing the images, I was also browsing Facebook and noticed a few more of the ongoing flood of AI photos scroll by and realised that I very rarely see anything but wide views. In a small experiment, I attempted to create AI versions of the photos I took while exploring, but I got absolutely zero results that resembled them.
I see this as reassuring. A sense that our efforts exploring our environments and creating a visual story are not going to be supplanted by the rising AI tsunami. I think the opposite is true. I see our unique, personal stories becoming increasingly interesting because they are human. There will always be a need for artists to demonstrate their connection to a place, and unless we can build AIs that want to wander the landscape with their own cameras, that will always have to come from human beings.
So, as a silent protest against the use of clickbait AI mountain vistas, here’s some rock.
Tim Parkin

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