In an Age Where Beautiful Photos Lose Their Value, Where Is Photography Heading?

In an Age Where Beautiful Photos Lose Their Value, Where Is Photography Heading?
― What Will You Shoot in the Age of AI? ―

Do "Beautiful Photos" Really Still Have Value?

I saw the Yubi Exhibition and the Daido Moriyama Exhibition.

The Daido Moriyama exhibition was excellent.
On the other hand, while looking at the Yubi Exhibition, I felt a constant sense of discomfort.

Of course, there are good photos. There are careful works. But overall, it looked to me somewhat like a "commercial photography study group."

Well-ordered composition.
Beautiful colors.
Well-handled light.
Easy-to-understand emotion.

And I felt there was an implicit premise behind it all.

Beautiful photos are the only good photos.
Skillful photos are the only ones with value.

But is that value system really still valid today?

In fact, isn't that very value system the one most easily replaced by AI?

AI Ends the Desire to "Shoot Well"

AI can already remove unwanted objects.
It can change the sky.
It can create things that do not exist.
It can even change a person's expression or posture.

Furthermore, even cameras are becoming unnecessary now.

If you input words, beautiful images and videos are born.

Moreover, in many cases, it is faster, cheaper, and more efficient than humans.

So, what will happen to the desire to "take good photos" or "create beautiful works" from now on?

Perhaps that desire itself is becoming obsolete.

To put it bluntly,

taking beautiful photos that look like something seen somewhere before will rapidly lose its value from now on.

This is because AI excels at imitation and optimization.

And much of what we have called "good" may actually have been nothing more than the imitation or refinement of existing values.

If that is the case, what can humans leave behind?

Is photography a hobby? Or is it life?

Photography is fun.

There is the joy of capturing beautiful things.
There is the fun of improving.
There is the happiness of being praised by someone.

There is absolutely no need to deny that.

However, on the other hand, there are also people who have linked photography not just to entertainment, but to their own way of life and existence.

People who have spent their lives on photography.
People who have seen the world through photography.
People who could only express themselves through photography.

For those people, photography is not a hobby.

Photography was an act of using one's time, using one's life, and sometimes even sacrificing one's life to engage with the world.

This is the question being asked here.

What does photography mean to you?

Is it a way to kill time?
Is it for validation?
Is it a technique?
Is it self-satisfaction?

Or is it something you want to leave behind as proof that you lived?

The more we enter the AI era, the harder it becomes to escape this question.

The word "individuality" is the most dangerous one

Recently, the words "individuality" and "expression" are frequently used in photography.

However, are most of them truly individual?

Compositions that look individual.
Processing that looks individual.
Themes that look individual.

If that is just a combination of existing styles, AI can mass-produce it.

In other words, from now on,

"Things that look individual" will be easily replicated.

Then, what remains in the end will be the raw experience of life itself—how that person lived, what they were obsessed with, what they feared, and what they found salvation in.

AI has not lived a life.

Therefore, if there is any value that truly remains until the end, it may not be technique, but the traces of a lived life.

Why does Daido Moriyama's work from 60 years ago still not feel old?

I looked at Daido Moriyama's "Japan: A Photo Theater" again.

These are photographs from about 60 years ago.

Yet, it is not old.

Rather, it is strangely contemporary.

Even though I have seen these works many times, they look different when I see them now.

It is unsettling.
It is restless.
It is interesting.

Why is that?

It cannot be explained by simple technique or beauty.

There lies the gaze of Daido Moriyama himself.

A sense of discomfort with the city.
Anxiety about the times.
Desire.
Loneliness.
Impulse.

In other words, the person who took the photograph remains within it.

That is why it survives even after half a century.

If photography were merely about beauty, it would have grown old long ago.

The AI era is not the end of human expression.

Many people think that human expression will be taken away by AI.

But is that really the case?

Perhaps it is the opposite.

The AI era is not an era where humans lose the meaning of expression.

Rather,

it may be an era where we are asked more strictly than ever why people express themselves.Perhaps.

Anyone can create beautiful images.

Skillful photos are being produced in massive quantities.

The amount of consumed imagery is increasing infinitely.

Within that,

why do you take photos?
What do you spend your time on?
What do you spend your life on?

That question alone carries more weight than before.

Photography will not end. Rather, it begins here.

This change is not merely a technological innovation.

It is confronting us with the fundamental question of what the value of photography is.

The AI era is not simply an era where technology changes.

It is an era where human expression itself is being fundamentally questioned.It is.

And the question of what photography is will not be ended by AI.

Rather—

What is photography?
What is expression?
What should people spend their lives on?

That question may only just be beginning in earnest from here on out.