AI Family Photos vs Real Photography: Does It Really Matter?
By now, most of us are aware of the potential risks of uploading our photographs to AI. But is that a price worth paying for the perfect picture?
After trying 45 different prompts to stop AI from changing Grandma's face and another 20 to get the background just right, you've finally got it. The perfect family portrait.
Beautiful lighting, everyone smiling and not a single child pulling a funny face.
And the best part? You haven't even had to leave the house. In fact, you don't even need the whole family in the same room!
But here's my question. Can an AI generated image really replace a family photography session?
I have hundreds of photographs from over the years, and each one holds some sort of memory.
There are photos from my twenties that I still tag friends in with a message saying, "OMG, do you remember this?" Then there are the more recent ones, where I can remember exactly what was happening when the photograph was taken.
The laughing and giggling as we tried to get everyone looking at the camera, the silly faces, the moments in between and even the trip to Starbucks afterwards.
They're not all perfect photographs, but that's what I love about them. They're little reminders of days, people and moments that actually happened.
And I think that's the part we sometimes forget when we're so focused on getting the perfect picture.
Have We Forgotten the Value of a Photograph?
The truth is, I've often wondered whether even the hundreds of quick snaps we take on our phones hold quite the same meaning as a physical photograph.
I'm sure most of us millennials remember taking a disposable camera or a roll of film into Boots, waiting to get the photographs developed and then flicking through them to see which ones actually turned out.
Half of them were blurry, someone always had their eyes closed and there was usually at least one photograph of someone's thumb - let's not forget the double exposure's ... Is that a ghost?
But we kept them anyway.
We put them into albums, stuck them in frames or tucked them away in a drawer. And years later, we'd pull them out and find ourselves laughing at the memories all over again.
These days, we can take 50 photographs of the same moment, choose the best one and forget about the other 49. And more often than not, even that best one ends up sitting on our phones amongst thousands of others.
It makes me wonder whether, somewhere along the way, we've become so focused on taking photographs that we've forgotten to actually enjoy them.
The Perfect Picture or the Perfect Memory?
Maybe AI can create the perfect photograph. Everyone looking at the camera, a few pounds taken off here and there to make us feel better, people removed from the background or even added into the picture.
But somewhere amongst all that perfection, are we losing the very things that make us human?
Twenty years from now, when our grandchildren are looking through our family photographs, what will those conversations sound like?
Will it be, "OMG, do you remember that photoshoot when baby Bob wouldn't stop running off and the poor photographer was jumping around like a lunatic trying to make him laugh?"
Or will it be, "When was that taken? I don't remember you wearing that dress."
"Oh, I wasn't. I asked AI to put me in it one evening."
And maybe that's the real question.
"When we look back at our family photographs, do we want to remember how perfectly unreal everything looked or do we want to remember the people, the laughter and the moments behind them?"
Much Love,
Jem x
Creative family, children's and maternity photographer in Coventry and Warickshire
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