Adam’s Daily Post

“Wedding photographers outraged by amateur who offered to pay couples to shoot their big day.”

Some see this as “A race to the bottom gone wild.” I get it.

But I see this as “A keen photographer committed to starting their portfolio and photographer career, in a climate where such jobs are far from guaranteed, so are thinking outside the box to make it happen.”

I fully support that kind of mindset.

Nevermind the naysayers. Go get it, bud.

A lot of folks are talking about ‘software brain’ again.

Data. Databases. Everything is data, in databases. Methodical, organized, controllable.. Who controls the database controls everything. Yada-yada.

But software brain is a choice. Organizing things that way is a choice. A popular choice, but a choice.

On the flip side, you could (for instance):

• Think on paper, not in apps. It’s messy, unstructured, hard to recall. The mess is the point.
• Plan less. It’s counterintuitive, unproductive. The spontaneity is the point.
• Have fewer opinions. The discourse is friendlier, and algorithms have less power over your heartstrings.
• Make your coffee differently every time. The randomness is the point.
• Enjoy wrong turns or getting lost. GPS databases are based on the opposite.
• Act on feeling, not just on logic. We do anyway, logic is often just a story we tell ourselves.

The list could go on and on.

The point is this: if we live in ways that wouldn’t suit a database, we don’t get software brain, and tech doesn’t consume our world, or our worldview.

That’s rare. A place where new, unexpected ideas show up. We need more of that: ChatGPT already covered the rest.

We’re at a crossroads.

When AI can generate an image that looks like what’s in your head…
Like what you’ve seen before and want to see again…

We get a choice:

1. Choose to engage a creative who will bring a new perspective, a new idea, a new take on an old theme
2. Just take the generated image, advance nothing, and not care one bit

But it’s not so simple.

Creatives will worry about people choosing Option 2…
But the problem isn’t necessarily Option 2.

The problem is that fewer and fewer creatives want to show up fully to Option 1.

Many creatives are phoning in their creativity to inspiration galleries or prompting-in-secret.

The solution isn’t to whine about Option 2…
The solution is to show what Option 1 is capable of.

Now’s not the time to be fearful, nor lazy.
Now’s the time to be more creative than ever before.

Between 2005 and 2019, the number of words we speak out loud to another human reportedly fell by nearly 28 percent.

The pandemic likely made it even worse.

More connected than ever.
Less connected than ever.

We think smartphones keep us connected.
What if they’re keeping us apart?

Why are shiny new-and-improved things exciting?

Whatever the reason, I don’t share it.

We’re told we’re supposed to want new-and-improved.

But there are a few issues with that:

• new-and-improved may not be better than what you do now
• new-and-improved may not be more reliable than what you do now
• new-and-improved may not be more proven than what you do now
• new-and-improved may not justify the switching costs
• new-and-improved may be change for the sake of change
• new-and-improved is just a story sold as a fact

Sometimes, new-and-improved has a place.

But oftentimes, it’s a distraction.

There are already enough distractions.

When the camera happened, artists were supposed to be doomed.

Yet there are still many artists. More, even.

When the smartphone happened, photographers were supposed to be doomed.

Yet there are still many photographers. More, even.

In the moment, when a new thing happens, things are supposed to be doomed.

Yet they continue, often with expansion.

Remember that when things feel catastrophic.

Some want to pay less, to get less, while demanding more, and leave for a cheaper option when it comes along.

Some want to pay a little more, to get more than they paid for, while demanding less than they got.

We get to choose what type of people we want to surround ourselves with, when we put our work into the market.

Your message isn’t what it says on your website.

Your message is what those who know you, tell the others.

Those are words you may not have chosen. You can’t wordsmith or A/B test that. You can’t un-say what you’ve said. You can’t pretend you’ve done what you haven’t.

And that’s part of why those words are so important.

Maybe we should focus less on the simple prose we can control, and more on words that spread.

Sometimes, you can get more ideas to explore by prompting an LLM for them.

Sometimes, you can get more ideas to explore by sitting with a cup of tea and watching the clouds roll by.

The second is less efficient yet, often, more effective.

If, that is, you’d like ideas different to those everyone else is having.

Is it pointless, or the point?

Some see to street photography as a futile — and often unpredictable — record of banality.

Others see it as capturing life itself, an unfiltered record of existence, a mirror to an imperfect world.

Some see writing emails by hand as a waste of mental energy and time.

Others see it as staying sharp, showing up with care, preferring it over machines talking to other machines all day until we all run out of water.

It’s a good reminder that the point isn’t objective. It’s entirely, empirically subjective.

Changes how we look at so many decisions we make day to day.