AI in Photography: The Shocking Truth You Need to Know
Are you curious about AI’s impact on photography?
Are you curious about AI’s impact on photography? Stay with me to uncover the good, the bad, and what it means for your creative future!
Hey everyone! Welcome back to Coffee Break Photography. I am Rich Dyson, from Edinburgh Photography Workshop. Today, I want to chat about something pretty exciting—how AI is changing the way we shoot, edit, and even create images? It’s a bit of a mixed bag, so let’s take a look at both the good and the not-so-good sides of AI in photography.
Let’s start with the positives. AI has made editing so much quicker and easier. Gone are the days of spending ages trying to perfect a photo—now, tools like Adobe’s AI features, Luminar AI, and Topaz Labs can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. Want to replace a boring sky? Smooth out skin? Remove an unwanted object? Done!
This means you can get your photos looking great, fast—perfect if you’re short on time, want to impress clients with quick turnarounds, or just enjoy a nice cup of coffee!
And here’s a bonus: AI can help beginners learn and improve their skills. Apps can analyse your images and suggest tweaks, which is super helpful for those just starting out. AI really is making photography more accessible to everyone, regardless of experience level.
But… it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. There are some tricky parts to AI in photography, especially when it comes to honesty and reliability.
One thing we’re seeing more of lately are AI-generated headshots for LinkedIn profiles. Companies can now generate perfect, polished images of candidates—images that might not even be of the actual person. Sounds impressive? Sure. But is it fair? Well, not quite.
First of all, let’s think about photographers, yes, you and I. My job is a photographer, when I’m not running workshops and producing content for here, I am taking pictures for clients, or I am out shooting news images that end up online or in papers. Well news images have to be authentic – we aren’t allowed to use AI to create an image. We have to shoot what is happening in front of us, and if we are found to have manipulated an image to show something that didn’t happen, you can pretty much forget working in news ever again.
That leaves the other third of my business, shooting for clients. If they start to use these AI tools to create their own pictures, I lose a chunk of my annual income. Boo hoo you may say, poor photographer. But let’s think about the impact this has on amateur photographers. If you’ve bought a consumer camera in the last five years, there are some pretty impressive features. Fast frames per second rates, amazing auto focus and far less noise when using higher ISO’s. Those improvements weren’t designed for the consumer market, they’ve been passed down from the high-end cameras that pros are using. Reduce the income of pros and they’ll buy less camera gear. If there’s less units being sold the manufacturers will have less to put into R&D and in a few years’ time you’ll see the impact on the consumer cameras just not getting any better.
But also, using a fake photo is a bit deceptive. It might give a first impression that isn’t quite accurate, and when the real person shows up, that could lead to disappointment or even mistrust. How would you feel as an employer if you see the person in front of you at the interview has used AI to appear to be something they aren’t in real life? For me the two things I looked for when hiring people was honesty and authenticity.
Even if you do get the job, and you thank AI for helping you to get in front of your employer, will you be as kind to AI when it replaces you in a few years’ time?
Now, let’s talk about my other issue with AI. Fake landscapes. You know those mind-blowing images that pop up in Facebook groups—half of them look incredible, but many are entirely generated by AI.
For example, here’s one doing the rounds on groups about Edinburgh or Scotland. I can tell you with 100% certainty that this view doesn’t exist. For a start, there appears to be a London bus driving on the pavement. Now there is one red bus in Edinburgh that is used for weddings, but the rest of our buses are a purple-red colour. Secondly, the Edinburgh tattoo is going to have a problem running if this image was true – there’s literally no way into the castle and the Esplanade has totally disappeared!
While these images can be beautiful and inspiring, they also can mislead or create false expectations. If someone sees a stunning landscape, they might think it’s a real place—until they find out it’s AI-made. This can influence how people perceive travel ideas or environmental issues.
Here’s the thing—photography is about telling the truth, sharing stories, capturing real moments. When AI blurs that line, it can make us question what’s genuine. And for professional photographers, it can feel like our craft is being undervalued because AI can generate images without the same skills or effort.
So, how do we handle all this? Well, I think the key is to embrace AI as a helpful tool, but always with integrity. Use it to boost creativity and speed things up—just don’t lose sight of honesty and authenticity. Remember, the heart of photography is about connection, truth, and storytelling. That’s something AI can’t replace. Let me know what you think in the comments section below.
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Thanks for hanging out with me today. I’m Rich Dyson, and I run Edinburgh Photography Workshop. Keep clicking, keep having fun, and I’ll catch you in the next video. Cheers!
