Notes: The notion of originality

To all those angry photographers out there lamenting that AI merely copies, please upload some images of yours and pop them into Google Lens. You do this by going to Google Search and pressing the small camera icon as shown below. Use images that you like and are proud of, or which other people have been positive about, but which have not been published in any major titles. Non-major titles are fine, as shown below:

You may find that your image is not quite as original as you initially thought.

Here are some of mine:

This image of my son was taken at Tate Modern. It is included in an anthology of phone images published by PHMuseum called *Familiar Stranger (2019)*. I had to buy my own copy after being selected and was not paid. I have submitted more interesting images to PHMuseum publication since and other organisations which have not been selected. I can’t quite recall, but I think this was taken in an Olafur Eliasson show – it looks that way. Must I credit him for the orange light? What if it wasn’t him though? I seem to recall lots of different coloured lighting. So perhaps it is someone else? Will I credit the artist whose name I can’t recall for this phone snap? This kind of portrait where the face can’t be seen is sometimes referred to as an anti-portrait. Perhaps I should **c redit all the people who came before me** who also opted for this strategy. I have taken/made/created quite a lot of anti-portraits in my time! Who wants crediting?

Another son! Not published anywhere supposedly important, but loved by my family and friends who enjoyed the intense stare. There are a million similar images out there. No one cares about that.

An image I made on my phone circa 2015, then printed limited editions which I sold at a local cafe. I have no copies left. When I first uploaded it on Flickr back in the day, it elicited several affirmative comments. At the time of making it, I was depressed, angry and grieving. It expressed my mood perfectly. But look, it’s not remotely original. The thing about it that perhaps stands out is that it was made on an earlyish iPhone, printed and sold – something quite a few photographers would have frowned upon because it wasn’t made with this or that fetishised and romanticised object or process. I’m very glad some people have it on their walls in their homes.

Included in the gallery above, is an image I generated in Midjourney the other day. The prompt was: “random non-objects including TV parts that show the same scene playing on the coloured screen taped to a wall and floor and photographed images and legs and arms poking through, fashion photography, photorealistic, filmic, Bruegel” (a long way out of copyright I might add) –aspect 4:5 –chaos 25 –style raw. Some of the images that emerged had more of what I’d asked for than this but I found the colours and position of the figure satisfying – a bit like when I used to practice street photography and I would train my camera on something specific, but then a person would pass, or the wind would blow, and I’d end up with an enjoyable surprising image I had not planned – in instances like this, there might be an unconscious element brought to the surface. This feels like the same process. Is he plastic, is he human, why is he lying in such a strange position, what is that leaking out of the screen? When I ask the internet to find similar images, men in rubber appear by the dozen. There are plenty of such pictures on the internet and if you really fancy delving into that, I am sure you would find some interesting stuff. But this one is different and odd. I like it. I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything with it. Just as with most photography or image-based projects I work on, I may think about it for a while, and then perhaps forget about it. Or I might even print it as a one-off and try selling it as it is. Like with traditional photography, I would want to ensure it was print ready for whatever specific paper I chose – and I would think carefully about that too. Or I could try submitting it to a competition – where possible. Since it is not in the usual style expected for MJ images, I have little faith it would get anywhere. It’s closer to fine art photography but is likely to be barred there. And as I have shared it several times online, there is nothing to stop someone else from downloading it and trying their luck with it on Midjourney or Dall-E either. Working with reference images on MJ can generate much more interesting outcomes than the text only process, so do give it a go! But why is selling this picture more or less acceptable than selling the black-and-white image above? Or any of my work?

Finally, here is an image I took several years ago. It was published in a major title so it only appears in the search once. Isn’t that interesting? My ownership validation is somehow tied to the big important magazine name? But can it really be true that there is only one image of a young girl with red hair on the internet, as shown by Google here? Obviously not! There are a LOT of them. At the time, people said, ‘Oh, you should submit it to Taylor Wessing (a prestigious portrait competition)’. The reason? Because TW seemed to be rather fond of images of young people with red hair – and it’s true that redheads can be incredibly photogenic. But was this not an example of algorithmic thinking in the people encouraging me or in the TW judges who kept choosing photographs of redheads? I can’t recall whether I submitted it that year. If I did, it didn’t get anywhere!

This morning, I read someone lamenting on social media that all AI art is of no value whatsoever – ‘learn about some art’ the angry person cried at the end of their post. The other day, I read that all AI art is unethical, even though it’s a blanket term that seems to relate to a raft of different strategies only some of which draw on image generators. I don’t tend to reply to people on social media who are clearly looking for angry interactions and responses. Life is too short and it’s boring. There is much to say about machine-generated aesthetics and the systems that help make them, and I discuss those here regularly. But the complaint that this kind of work is ‘just’ copying misses the point.

Refs:

Photography, B. J. of (2017) Separation: The best entries so far. At: https://www.1854.photography/2017/12/separation-the-best-entries-so-far/ (Accessed 30/10/2023).

Newman, M. (2020) ‘Decapitations: the portrait, the anti-portrait … and what comes after?’ In: Johnstone, F. and Imber, K. (eds.) Anti-Portraits, Challenging the Limits of the Portrait. At: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/antiportraiture-9781784534127/ (Accessed 30/10/2023)..

Notes: The notion of originality

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