Read a Facebook comment today, under a post showcasing some basic background swapping on a portrait with some AI tool. The comment was something to the effect of: “It’s all good as long as the average person doesn’t learn to use this. But once every other Joe and his 2 year old with a ’touch phone’ can do background swapping, face tuning, body editing, etc. on images, that’s when photographers will be in trouble. At that point, we’ll be out of business and photography as a profession will be dead.”
I am of course aware that in applied work, in fashion and other commercial genres extensive editing has been the norm forever. But to equate this with “photography as a profession”? It’s like saying that digital photography killed the profession because a professional photographer is someone who can expose and develop slide film correctly. Yes, digital changed the industry and some people, the people whose only qualification was “can operate a stills camera”, were pushed out. Individually, it sucks when a person loses their job, even more so, when they lose their profession. But as a discipline, as a field? I think photography is better off.
I don’t like generative AI too much and find the truth-bending potential of image and video generators to be dangerous. But it’s a danger like the wolves migrating to your forest. It changes things, you’ll have to adapt and they might eat you. They will most definitely eat your sheep. You can lament the loss of the good old wolfless days, but the wolves are here now and you can’t wish them away.
Politically, ideologically I’d love to live in a society that considers people’s interests before some VS funded AI snakeoil company. That would be a better, more just place to live. Practically, however all I can see is small scale wins for the people and large scale wins-by-default for the corporations. If we all somehow banded together, we might be able to push the wolves back a bit. But I don’t think we can bet our lives only on that happening. So organize and try to push back on the wolves, but also, be prepared for what you will do once all your sheep are eaten.
In photography, as in elsewhere in the arts, there has always been applied work. But the heart of photography is no one specific genre or business model. The heart of photography is that it captures light and time. Whatever genre you work in, be it nature, documentary, fashion, weddings, whatever, capturing light and time is what you do. As a field I don’t think we lose too much with some schmock not being able to make a living on photoshopping women thinner. The industry will change, it might shrink a lot, but the heart, that we won’t lose because software can’t capture, it can only simulate. Will anybody pay us to photograph? I don’t know. But if what photography means to you is really the business of photography, then I don’t think we have much in common besides owning a camera.
A long conversation today made me think about deep knowledge versus surface knowledge. I assume this is true everywhere, but in the two fields I’m familiar with (photography and software development) the field has deep knowledge and surface knowledge. The people with deep knowledge are the ones that can create truly valuable, long lasting work but the people with surface knowledge are the ones the market seems to favor.
In photography people with very little understanding of lighting, composition, emotion and little capacity for human connection tend to be the ones doing most of the paid, commercial, “professional” work. They are also the ones that are the loudest and most clueless about trends and changes in the industry, about outside forces like generative AI or high quality phone cameras that are affecting the industry.
The people with deep knowledge might sometimes lack the business sense, self-branding skills and knowledge of fads required to get the shallow but high paing jobs. They tend to be less worried, too. They know that when the industry “collapses”, it only doesn’t collapse for them. The shallow jobs might shrink and disappear, but the core is here to stay and they operate in the (highly underpaid but also intangibly highly valuable) core.
I find the same is true in the world of software. People with very little sense or skill in systems thinking, lacking a deep understanding of real world usage and analytical thought are the ones working in the hundreds of thousands (or maybe millions) of “development” jobs, usually in big multinationals or in enterprise environments. They know the specific features of specific systems, but that’s it. These are the people whose jobs might be in peril from chatGPT and Copilot and similar tools, generating endless boilerplate and basic code for basic functions.
The “true” programmers are not like this. They operate on the level of organizational thinking, designing systems, digging deep into computing (not coding!) problems. Their skills are not in a specific language or toolset that’s in vogue.
There is one major difference however: in the software world, the people with core knowledge are highly paid as well! This industry values them in a way many others don’t value their own “deep knowledge” workers.
My feelings are similar in both industries: I just can’t bring myself to respect the “surface” people in the same way I can respect the “deep knowledge” people. It has nothing to do with market value: I respect people who create true, lasting human value. People who can think deeply, understand human problems and create well fitting solutions do, in my opinion, something fundamentally, qualitatively different from people who can quickly and reliably apply the same solution without any sign of interest in the specific problem or the underlying, deeper human values and issues the problem arises from.
Strive to understand people and communities and how they work. Whatever specific solution you add on top is just implementation detail.
Well, anyways.
So I did some quick calculations today. Let me start at the beginning.
I’ve been living with a feeling that I will, in a vague future time, be “successful” and “comfortable” (financially) in a vague, undefined way. Because of this, I’ve always felt that whatever my current situation is is only temporary, on the way to a better, happier, well-off life. Basically that I am bound to “make it” at some undefinied future point. This line of thinking is my default expectation of life, but it seems suspect. So today I did some back-of-the-napkin calculations: what can I actually expect in a best case scenario?
I’ll do this in HUF, as that’s my native currency, but I’ll give some EUR figures at the end. All of this is on current HUF value and based on the current Hungarian situation. This is a best case scenario, so if more inflation happens, I’m assuming I’m also making more money, or something. Lots of handwaving here.
I’m currently 32, which means I have another 33 years until I’m 65 and can expect to retire. If, over 33 years, I save HUF 500 000 every month, at 65 I can expect to have a total net worth of about HUF 200 million. That is the best case, if everything goes well.
Of course not everything goes well in life, and to start, I’m not saving 500k/month at the moment, but let’s say the difference is offset by inheriting the family home with my brother and interest earned on savings. Let’s say, all in all, I make it to 200 million.
Let’s also assume that HUF 120 million is the lower limit to never running out of money (because interest on it is more than what I need to spend to live a comfortable life). This is an old number from another round of back-of-the-napkin from a few years ago, so probably not valid anymore, but let’s assume it still holds.
This means, that by the time I’m 65 I can expect to have a comfortable retirement and a small suburban house in Hungary (80 million in current prices kinda checks out for this).
This is THE BEST CASE SCENARIO. This is the UPPER LIMIT of what I can expect to achieve financially in my life. Anything goes wrong, any life events, mistakes or just not being the most talented, most successful, luckiest person I can be and my total is lower than this. The best I can expect, ever, is a quiet, comfortable life.
When I think about the future, I hope I’ll be able to keep this in mind: I cannot expect to be any wealthier than a slightly better off version of my parents. The maths says so. There is no way imaginable for me to achieve anything more than a small house and a safe retirement. This is not a goal, this is the jackpot for my life.
I don’t yet know what to do with this thought, but I want to keep this in mind. Hopefully I can use this knowledge to readjust my life and my priorities in the here and now, because there is no big win waiting for me down the road. I can’t say I’m overly excited about this realization, but it seems like a useful one.
Well, anyways.
HUF 500 000 is about EUR 1 240 with today’s exchange rate. HUF 200 000 000 is a bit under EUR 500 000.
Average monthly salary in Hungary in June 2024 was HUF 442 000 (about EUR 1 100). HUF 80 million gets you a house about 90 sqm, in a not-terrible suburb of Budapest.