Hi and welcome to TalkTalk . My name's Kevin Aaronson . Talktalk is photographers in conversation . A couple of things before we start this week's episode . Kelly and I had some issues with sound quality . We recorded her part of the conversation remotely with software designed for that , but it hasn't really been very clear . We've been very disappointed . So from the next session not this one coming , but from the next session Kelly's joining me in my studio to record in another microphone that plugs into my mixing desk and we should get much better quality . The other thing is I mentioned some workshops which are planned for September . We recorded this back in late july , early august , but time has not been good and things will be delayed a little bit , so don't take those timings as literal . Thank you for listening . Let's get on with the show . Welcome , kelly , hello , hello , thanks for having me back .
Speaker 1It's your second time it is . It's so exciting .
Speaker 2So exciting .
Speaker 1Deserves a cup of coffee , doesn't it really ?
Speaker 2It does . Thank you for allowing me back after the last one , after the last .
Speaker 1What would be a good word . I don't think fiasco is right , because it wasn't a fiasco and it wasn't a debacle either .
Speaker 2No , it was just very chatty .
Speaker 1Experience . It was an experience . Yes , shall we say take it away intro ? Yes , you say it , take it away intro . Hi , my name is Kevin Aronson from Hampshire School of Photography and welcome to Talk Talk 5 , 4 , 3 , 2 , 1 , 0 .
Speaker 2All engines running Liftoff . We have a liftoff .
Speaker 1Well , it's great to have you back , Kelly . It just seems absolutely ages since last we chatted , but it's only a couple of weeks , of course . What's been happening with you since we last met ? Anything exciting .
Speaker 2Yes , so I have launched my mini photography sessions and my full photography sessions in my studio here in Fleet and I've already done a couple of shoots , which have been amazing . It's been really fun to use the studio and actually capture some really great images . I've done some headshots and I also did a gorgeous like transitional photo shoot of a lovely , lovely girl who was transitioning from ballet to football , and so that was really good fun and we had a dog come in and it was just lovely .
Speaker 1It was lovely to use the space I trashed transitions once from from ballet to football I'm sure you did in my wildest dreams you look good in a tutu . I'm sure in my younger years I would have looked pretty good in a tutu . I've always been complimented on my legs , actually even from a young age , um , but let's not go there , let's , let's move swiftly on . Um anything else been going on , or it's just basically work , work , work work , work .
Speaker 2I have been prepping um . I'll give you a little spoiler , because for the um Hampshire Photography Network I am going to launch a competition , uh , monthly competition . So that's all I'm going to say for now . You and I have had a little chat about it . I'm really excited about it . Yeah , I think probably the next time we chat we'll probably be able to give everybody some more details .
Speaker 1Outstanding . Can't wait for that . Of course you're dying to say well , what have you been doing , kev ? I ?
Speaker 2am . What have you been up to ? What have you been up to , Kevin ? Tell me all about it .
Speaker 1Well , a couple of things come to mind . I'm in this position now of because I've moved into kind of semi-retirement , I wanted to spend more time training online . I've never really done an awful lot of online training because I didn't want to . I much prefer seeing people face to face and working in a classroom with real people , because it's easier to read people , it's easier to react and for them to react , it's a much better working environment and it's a much better learning environment .
Speaker 1But I understand , of course , that for some people maybe they just can't get to where we are in fleet .
Speaker 1They live too far away or possibly their , their work means they they can't attend the sessions .
Speaker 1So it's inevitability that I've got to do some online sessions and I'm working with a beta group of people at the moment there's eight people and we're just looking uh , we're just looking at some stuff online and what works and what doesn't work , and so that when I start , probably in September , I'll be in a strong place to run stuff online .
Speaker 1And then the other interesting thing and I guess I didn't want to admit this to myself is that back in January I moved into semi-retirement but it's proven to be quite difficult for me because I hate letting go of the things I love to do , and the whole idea was to keep Linda , my wife , happy was that I would only be working three days a week . So I've limited myself to just three days a week with people , but of course planning for those still takes up time . So I'm desperately not trying to do so much work that I infringe upon my family time and in that process I have neglected quite a bit of useful background activity and the kind of things that you have to do as a professional all the marketing stuff you know .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1It's really important because you don't keep telling people . You're out there , the business doesn't come in . So I've been going through quite a lean period and wondering why . Then I realized , oh , because I've not been advertising , I've not been out there telling people .
Speaker 2So I'm having a rethink on that and just to um jump on what you said about the marketing aspect of being a photographer and constantly having to put stuff out there . Um , consistency is key , but I would hope that you use tools to help you , tools like like um scheduling your posts , using ai to help you with your um , your marketing and your advertising . Do you do that ?
Speaker 1um , yes , not in terms of scheduling my posts . I'm not that well disciplined . I tend to oh , look you . Because we just know the audience don't know . We've got our cameras on , although we're at homes . We're at home and I've just spotted my naked knee appearing in the shot on the video . You guys can't see this . You can only hear us , but look , that's my knee yes , I was trying to keep a straight face old men's knees .
Speaker 1I just don't anyway . So no one normally sees me in shorts , because I think old men in shorts is .
Speaker 2You know oh , which reminds me I'm wearing leggings today after your yeah what ? But they are short leggings and I've got a long top on . But honestly , after our last chat and then I put leggings on this morning because I was going to a national trust with the children and I thought , oh , my god , I really hope I don't see kevin if you don't know what we're talking about , guys , listen to the previous episode where Kelly first joined me .
Speaker 1Anyway , ai . So yeah , in terms of posting stuff , I tend to just do it when I need it . Having said that , in the group in the Hampshire Photography Network , all the regular posts in there are scheduled about three or four weeks ahead . But that's not using ai , that's just using facebook scheduling system . Yeah , okay , so do I use ai ? I use ai quite a lot . Yeah , I do , um , in lots of different ways . So I actually probably two distinct ways , not lots of different ways , so two distinct ways . One is with text .
Speaker 1I use it as a tool to help me plan things and particularly if I've got to send out a bunch of emails or I'm preparing an introduction to something , the AI has a great way of sitting through lots of time . Here's a good one . So I've got a number of clients just a small number , it's three or four who have paid for me to mentor them privately for a whole year . And when we have a zoom conversation , zoom records the conversation and then , using ai , sends you back a report , summary that conversation with bullet points , action points and sections with different headers and at a glance , I can just go over the conversation and it's an instant reminder , without all that having to . Could you imagine having to sift through a hot an hour the conversation and it's an instant reminder without all that having to ? Could you imagine having to sift through a hot an hour's conversation and pull out the important elements ? Zoom ai does it for me . Massive , massive time saver yeah , I , I , um .
Speaker 2As you know , I run a couple of different businesses and ai has been an absolute game changer for me when it comes to my other businesses , because I'm dyslexic , so a lot of the time writing text and the spelling is often wrong , the grammar is often wrong and sometimes I don't know how to phrase things and articulate things in text , and so I use AI as if it is my assistant and I will type in today I want to do a post about this blah blah , blah , blah , blah . I want it to cover this blah blah , blah , blah blah , and then it will give it to me perfectly so that I can just copy and paste into Instagram . So , for me , ai has been an absolute game changer with , with work , um , for my other businesses .
Speaker 1But what I think , um , I would love to chat about with you today , uh , kevin , is ai in photography and whether you think it is a good thing or a bad thing don't let anybody hear my answer , okay , so I mean there have been some classic cases within the last year or so where I think people have entered into competitions and so on using a bit of ai . We were talking about this earlier . Can you remind me what that one was ?
Speaker 2yes , so a gentleman called boris I can't remember his surname , it wasn't boris johnson no , no , great photographer , boris johnson , no , boris um won the sony world photography awards and the highest prestigious award in that uh , in , in that kind of show , if you like . He won it and then when he went to accept it , he refused it and he announced that the photo that had won was created with ai and he it , to the sound of photographers jaws dropping all over the country . I know , I mean , I think it's brilliant because he did it to open conversations about this . Yeah , um , and and he bought a lot of press coverage around this , and I think you know every industry that um , that people that I've spoken to in various industries are worried about AI . So for photographers , it is worrying . For me , I'm worried . There are photos out there that you genuinely can't tell if they are photos from a camera that somebody has taken time and effort and years of learning , and then there are photos that AI has created .
Speaker 1What this reminds me of is Uber coming along to take all the business away from taxi drivers in London who have spent years learning the knowledge . Learning their trade exactly and I still have never booked uh an uber because of that yeah , no , I don't use uber either .
Speaker 2It's funny , isn't it ? But you know , do we ?
Speaker 1progress ? Yeah , yeah and okay . So I'm in a fairly unique position , which is not typical for a photographer , because , by the very nature of my work , which is preparing presentations , and also as someone who's trying to keep a group of several hundred people in the facebook group , the hampshire photography network , interested and motivated and galvanized and contributing , in that I'm producing images using AI . When I'm editing my own work , I only use AI image production if it's going to be used where it's clearly AI . Do I use AI in any other way on my own pictures ? Yes , I do . The first question I'm going to answer is how I use AI , and then the second one is how I see this is going to affect photographers in the future . So I will say , before I even get to that second question I haven't got a clue . In reality , nobody has . Everyone's being asked and you're probably going to get several different answers , and there are some key global figures who are terrified by it and there are some others who are absolutely loving it . So no one knows . If you watch the Terminator film series , you're probably terrified . Anyway , how do I use it with photos Within the Facebook group , for instance , if I'm trying to generate interest in a specific event I'm putting on , I might create the imagery using AI if I don't have anything suitable from the thousands of photos I can draw on from my own library , from the pictures I've taken over the decades , and sometimes it's just easier .
Do you know ? It's actually easier and quicker to go onto Adobe Firefly , and I don't even have to type the instructions in . On a Mac , you can double click the function button and start dictating your instructions straight onto the screen hit enter and boom , the picture's created . Sometimes it gets you wrong , but the alternative is to start going through something like 50,000 images across two computers to try and find the perfect image , which in the end may not be the perfect image . So for that kind of thing , for images which are part of a presentation or to form part of a marketing graphic , which is what I'm going to ask , it as AI for me is absolutely . It saves me hours of work . Absolutely it saves me hours of work if I'm working on photographs which are not for that purpose , so in other words , photographs which I would submit to the public . As this is my work , do I use ai on those in a much reduced way to remove things from the picture , and of course , we've been using photoshop and lightroom , although you know lightroom's way of doing it up until recently was absolutely rubbish . But now we're using ai . You can get rid of the dustbin in the beautiful scene of the mountains and the cangorns . You can get rid of the spotty little oracle who stands in front of the camera when you're taking a lovely sunset . You can . You can do that .
Speaker 1Are you a passionate amateur photographer in Hampshire or the surrounding areas ? Do you ever feel like your hobby is a solitary pursuit ? Well , we know . No matter what your hobby , it's much easier to stick with it when you have friends to share it with . That's why we created the Hampshire Photography Network , a free Facebook group for amateur photographers who want to connect , collaborate and grow together . Ready to connect with other photographers in your area ? Head over to Facebook and search for Hampshire Photography Network . Just remember to answer the three simple questions to gain access .
Speaker 1I have a conscience and if I feel that any change I make somehow jars with that conscience and I can't really put this easily into words this is a gut feeling as a human being and also in terms of owing a sense of responsibility to all the people that I teach .
Speaker 1There's there's a , there's a part of me who says actually , kevin , you can't go , you can't do that . That would be wrong . Um , I will use it to change , perhaps , uh , extend an image if needed to be . But again , that that would . That would be for a presentation image , that wouldn't be for one which is there for show to display my work , to show what I'm capable of . So okay , so the clear , the clean answer is yes , I'll do anything with it , unless it's a picture which represents my work . So if I took a portrait of you and on that particular day , for some strange reason , let's say , I took a picture of another very attractive young lady I'll just say young , okay , it's all relative and she had some seriously crooked teeth yeah uh no my teeth are lovely , by the way .
Speaker 1I paid a fortune yeah , that's why I said teeth , because I knew I didn't apply to you . But you see what I'm about to say I would do before ai anyway . So this is an interesting one . If you , if you're trying to become a , a portrait or a people photographer and you've got a website and you've also got clients who are hiring you , I tell people , I tell students , be prepared to do two versions of the same picture . There's a version you give to the client and that client probably giving you some directions about whether they want any kind of airbrush , brushing or not .
Speaker 1You know you will quite commonly get oh , do you think you can get rid of some of those bags under my eyes or get rid of some of the chins , and they say it tongue-in-cheek . But if you do reduce them , don't get rid of them completely . They look stupid , but if you can reduce the appearance of them , they love you . However , if I then think , actually , that's a damn good picture would look great on the website , but it just needs see on a website . Your , it's your shop window and the pictures that appear on there , every single one of them without exception , should cause the viewer to go wow , yeah , any image which is below a wow picture , don't put it on , which means if you're doing people , everyone's got to look incredible . So you straighten teeth , you get rid of zits , you get rid of the glass eye , you know all that kind of stuff . Everyone has to look amazing . But for the person who paid you the money , you have to be very sensitive . No major changes . All changes are subtle . If they can see the changes . You've got it wrong .
Speaker 2But I was doing that before ai come along , but now ai does it quicker yeah , um , I guess that kind of leads on to a much deeper conversation because , as as a woman , as a mother to young children , and particularly young girls I have a stepdaughter who's 26 and I have a daughter who's almost nine I I can't stand the flawless images of , of people you know , and one of my issues with AI is I totally get you know . I did a photo shoot recently and the the young girl bless , her hormones have kicked in . She's very spotty and I reduced the color of the spots so they weren't as prominent , but I didn't remove the spots and immediately I got a text from them saying can you get rid of all the spots ? Fine , I'll get rid of all the spots . That's fine . They've asked for it . I'm happy to do it and I'm happy to have AI help me do that . But these kind of flawless images that AI is presenting .
Speaker 2I asked AI to produce an image of me as an insurance broker . I run an insurance business with my husband . I have no images of me in a suit because that's not me . So I asked AI to do that for me and it produced three absolutely gorgeous images of me . I mean , I look 20 years younger . I look absolutely stunning , my hair's perfect , yeah , I'm slimmer and and I put these on my Instagram . Now my personal Instagram I get on average , I reckon , 10 15 likes when I post pictures of me and my family , because I predominantly use Facebook for family stuff . But I posted these images and I had 44 likes within an hour and one person sent me a private message and said is that you in those photos ? And I went back and said no , it's not me . It's not me .
Speaker 2I sent an app , 27 photos of me , and it produced these images that are flawless . I couldn't look like that , not even if I went on a keto diet and had , you know , love island style hair and makeup done . It's not me . And but that side of AI and photography worries me . You know , we we've come so far to move away from this . Everybody has to be flawless . You know , I think there was a .
Speaker 2Somebody asked one of the AI . It might have been Midjourney , is it ? That's an image AI creator . Somebody asked it to create the perfect woman and it produced this tiny , tiny , slender , little , perfectly blonde woman , you know , with blue eyes and okay , so everybody that's got brown eyes and dark hair . You're not perfect Like I . Just , I don't know . There's stuff about it that I think can be really dangerous and damaging to people , to people and that's not even starting on the media and the fake press and the images that are being created , for that , I mean . I said to you earlier , kevin , there was a picture in March of Donald Trump being arrested that got 6.7 million views because it was released the day . People were waiting to find out what the verdict was , whether he was being found guilty , and you know that's dangerous . You can't tell if that's a real image or not . It turns out . Luckily the guy , luckily the guy said oh , you know , I was bored waiting for the verdict so I created this image , but that text gets lost and people genuinely thought he had been arrested .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah yeah , and there is that side of it .
Speaker 1There are some scoundrels who are using AI to create disruption in the social network scene and I look at most of these and I you and I can probably tell them to be honest , at this stage in the evolution of AI , they're still . Most of them are spotable , but the number of people who are completely taken in by them that's the problem that the the majority of people are taken in by them yeah , I don't know the percentages , but it could be as high as 70 or 80 percent .
Speaker 1Looking at the reactions when you read people's comments , this question is is really big and we can only go around in circles here . Like most things , the internet is good and it's bad . Ai is good and it's bad . Broccoli is bad and it's bad .
Speaker 2I like broccoli ? No yeah .
Speaker 1So the thing is with photographers , photographers . There is such a strong temptation , particularly among new photographers , to make a name for themselves , and if they can shortcut things with ai , I think some of them will . There are a lot of photographers out there who are dogmatically against it , quite vociferous , and it kind of typifies where most of humanity is at the moment polarized . Almost every issue under the sun . People are for or against Broccoli shepherd pie , broccoli chocolate , broccoli pastry , and I still don't know what the answer is . The answer is we'll find out in a few years' time whether we made a right decision ?
Speaker 2Yeah , or will we ? Yeah , look , there are some great uses for AI , as you said , you know , using AI , you can use it for efficiency when you're editing your pictures Old photos , people that restore old images , that can use ai . That side of it is is brilliant , so it has to be used correctly indeed little over a year ago .
Speaker 1Um topaz they've been playing around with ai for a while , but they only really made it big a little over a year ago and I was so impressed with their product that I became an affiliate for them . So people buy Topaz from one of my links . I get a couple of bob and it really isn't very much at all and they don't pay more for it , but I was . I was so genuinely impressed in the way that it can take a small snap tape and take it maybe from 100 years ago and blow it up to make an A3 printer . We're using AI . It takes the smallest amount of information and enlarges the whole thing and then , it reduces the background noise .
Speaker 1It sharpens up blurred photographs . It's extraordinary 's . It's not perfect no ai system currently is but it will be , we know , given time , when arnold schwarzenegger comes back from the future to try and kill off the bad skynet . You know if those who know what I'm talking about . You know what I'm talking about . Uh , I forgot what I was saying there . What was I talking about ? You know what I'm talking about ? Uh , forgot what I was saying there . What was I talking about ? What was that you were talking about ? Topaz , topaz , yes , yeah , so topaz is already using ai to take pictures like the ones you were just talking about and completely transforming them , but it doesn't take a huge amount of skill to do it . But then again it's . It's recovering a picture from past . I've done it with a number of old photographs myself that I took back when days of film and I transformed . The way they look looks fantastic , and I know it's a fake , but it still looks good at a glance and I'm , as a personal picture of me and my family are now long dead . I'm happy with that , yeah , but the temptation to completely falsify a photograph , it's there , isn't it ?
Speaker 2it is it is right .
I have some questions for you , kevin , um go on so you've said that you use AI and you mentioned Firefly briefly , is that the only tool that you use or is there other software that you're currently experimenting with ?
Speaker 1In terms of pictures . So I'll use the AI in Photoshop , the AI in Lightroom , the AI in Copas and then Firefly . The only other AI I use are text-based . So I use ChatGPT , I use Gemini , which of course is Google's equivalent , and I have some other software which analyzes text and does much the same as a Zoom system . If I've got a large amount of text , it'll break it up , analyze it , or I could if I wanted to , but I haven't yet write all my blog posts using AI . I could just chat a little bit in there or feed it . What I could do and I would never do is get somebody else's blog post from another part of the world on the same subject , feed it into chat , gpt or into Gemini and say rewrite this in my style . I've instantly got a blog post . It hasn't cost me any work .
Speaker 2I could do that , but I never would no , no , you can't steal other people's stuff , but it is great if you've got ideas to put in and have it . Create a blog post for you . 100 um . So how do you see it ? How do you see it evolving um over the next five to ten years ?
Speaker 1I've no doubt that it's going to become more sophisticated and more realistic . I mean , most of them they can't do hands very well , if you noticed . Yeah , really badly , but that that'll get better and we'll get ai into camera .
Speaker 1In fact , ai is already in some phones and it's a focusing system , so I understand on on big cameras , but I'm not overly concerned about it destroying photography , because people are still buying film cameras . It's having a resurgence , particularly among young people . Yeah , it's having a resurgence , particularly among young people . Yeah , and I myself I have a couple of mirrorless , three mirrorless cameras and a couple of DSLRs and I still really enjoy the simple DSLR . In comparison it is very unsophisticated , but there's a satisfaction I get from pressing a mechanical button here and mechanical click and just feeling that tactile feedback . It's really nice . And yet I go over to the mirrorless and I've got to learn so many things about the different focusing systems . My God and I'm going to upset some people here I'm so glad I don't own a Sony , because I've looked at the menu systems for the focusing systems on sony and , to be honest , I think I'd give up and take up knitting . Yeah , yeah , photography should not need to be that complicated yeah , keep it simple .
Speaker 2I actually bought , um a film camera last year and I taught myself how to develop the photos just using YouTube and I loved it and it was such a sense of achievement when that first image appeared , because I , you know , I'm from a generation after you , so , um , I don't really remember film cameras . I mean , I remember taking cameras to boots and having the film developed , but that was not for very long . You know , we were into digital fairly quickly , um , and I loved that feeling when I developed that first photo . It was of my dog and when that image appeared , oh , it was amazing . You can't , you can't duplicate that no , no , the .
Speaker 1We are a strange bunch . We love our technology , but we get romantic about the old stuff yeah , the stuff long before we were born . Do you ever watch that ? Just diversify . Do you ever watch that tv program ? Um , not workshop ? Um , the repair shop , the repair shop . Love it . It's addictive , isn't it ? I love it all those old skills yeah no technology involved there , no computers , no ai it's just wonderful .
Speaker 1So I , if I have to and I think we probably do need to end the conversation . If I have to end the conversation on a positive note , it's the fact that it's pretty clear that most people really like simple things .
Speaker 2Yes .
Speaker 1And they like the old things and because of that , I think cameras will always be around .
Speaker 1They may not be around in the numbers that we see them at the moment , and obviously they're massively reduced ever since the iPhone came out , but I think there's always going to be people who love the idea of creating images from scratch . It's as simple as that , in the same way that people pick up a brush and steal watercolor or paint with oils or sculpture or or learn to play an instrument . These are old skills which you have to do yourself and you have to learn , and you have to spend days and weeks and months and years of practice to get any good at . There's a sense of personal achievement you get for working with this older technology . It's quite heartening , isn't it it is , it is I .
Speaker 2I couldn't agree more with you that's good so just very , very , very quickly Go on For anybody listening who hasn't used AI in their photos yet , but they want to . They want to experiment . What advice would you give them ?
Speaker 1You know that I'm a great whiskey lover I do know that , yeah , you're gonna love this analogy .
Speaker 1This is just plucked out the air , as you were . Just I'm not . You're gonna ask me this question . Um , it's a bit like when you've you've paid a lot of money for a single malt whiskey . You bought a bottle , it's a big investment , and what you don't do it's just glug it all back . You don't get you , just you restrain yourself so you enjoy the moment and then put it aside for another time and then if you want to drink more regularly , you're you're going to have lesser quality products . You keep the good stuff just for those times where you need it .
Speaker 1And I say the same for AI Enjoy it , participate in it , get to understand it , but don't let it take control of you in the same way that a whiskey could do , and you could become an alcoholic . Of course and I certainly are I have maybe one whiskey a week , even though I've got a big collection and I love it . I hate getting drunk . To be frank , I hate hangovers , but the principle is the same and it applies to just about anything that the human race has embraced Moderation .
Speaker 2Yeah . Yes use it it , but moderation , don't let it control .
Speaker 1You love it , perfect answer okay and relax well , that's a good session , wasn't it ?
Speaker 2yeah , it was it was um always a difficult one to talk about when there's so many opinions , but I think thanks for putting me on the spot as well you love it . You love being put on the spot . Thanks for showing me your knee yeah , I'll lay .
Speaker 1I'll put a lovely , attractive body
on the end of it . Next time I'll see you in a couple of weeks , we think we know what we're talking about . We have kind of made a list , don't we ?
Speaker 2we know we know what the next one's about ?
Speaker 1yeah , we're not going to give them any hints , but it'd be worth listening out for . Thank you everybody for listening .
Speaker 2It's goodbye from me and it's goodbye from me until the next time .
Speaker 1Thanks for listening to this week's tog talk . If you've got any questions you'd like me to read out on air , then check out the show note link below , simply called questions , and the link there will take you to an on-screen button . You press it , talk to your computer or to your phone , and you can dictate your question straight to me and then I can play that live on air . Thank you again for listening and I look forward to seeing you in a week's time for another solo edition where it's just me answering photographers questions .