After his young employees show him a creature they created with AI, a creature writhing on the ground, with movements the AI "imagines", Miyazaki's reaction hits the nail right on the head: "Every morning...I see my friend who has a disability. It's so hard for him just to do a high five, his arm with stiff muscle reaching out to my hand. Now, thinking of him, I can't watch this stuff and find it interesting. Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is... I am utterly disgusted....I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself."
Recently I fell in love with the photography of Bernard Plossu. And I began to wonder why. That's when I thought back to the Miyazaki quote, especially the bold bit. Whoever created this stuff had a human sensibility that I could connect to.
Although I haven't been as much of a nomad as Plossu, I felt that the notion of "the road", for example when looking at this photograph of his, might have lifted his heart in a similar way to mine when I took this one.
Or when I look at his pictures of swallows, let's say this and this, I imagine that Plossu felt a similar kind of excitement as myself, the moment I took a picture of two rows of swallows on electric lines next to ancient Roman columns.
I even love it when he seems to be goofing around, taking a picture of his camera, because I did the same recently (who hasn't, right?), whilst I was photographing with my Rollei again after a two-year break (it felt quite weird initially...and I was so surprised when I reached the end of the roll after only 12 exposures!)
And there's even more. I find it charming that Plossu's been using nothing but an old Nikkormat with a 50mm f1.4 Nikkor for the majority of his work. Even his preferred look of his prints speaks to me: "The printing is still traditional black-and-white, no gimmicks, no black skies, nothing fancy—when something is gray, it has to be gray."
You see, it's all these imaginary threads that we weave in our minds that bond us to another person. On a deeper level, there's also the consolation that - although it very often does not feel like it - we're not alone!
Now, the million dollar question I ask myself is: what if tomorrow Plossu turns out to be an AI. It isn't so hard anymore to imagine such a future.
* In this post I used links to some of Plossu's photographs, which means there's a risk that you will not see the pics if the link is removed. I can not directly insert the pictures, as they are copyrighted material. These days not many people seem to respect this though. For example, Instagram is awash with #BernardPlossu. I have no idea if this is lawful.
Hi Omar - I've never heard of him, but some very nice photos, though I have to say I prefer your one of the birds - it is hard to get something as simple as that to look good, but that does.
ReplyDeleteNice to see the Rollei out and about too - it's like riding a bicycle using one to me.
It is the imperfection of humans that makes everything more interesting - I hate the perfection of most digital stuff - the world isn't like that. It's funny that in these days of Ai-photography everything, the likes of you and I - both anachronisms in our use of darkroom printing - are starting to be seen as last outposts of human endeavour.
Coo, I can bask in the glow of that . . .
Hi Phil. Plossu is also a new figure for me. I've just ordered one of his books.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the Rollei is a charm to use, but honestly it took me a couple of rolls to re-familiarise myself.
Over at Photrio someone recommended the name "Promptography" for AI-photography, which I find quite apt. But God knows where this will all lead. I've read about a kickstarter camera that will apply AI at the taking stage, and not in the way that the iPhone does it with it's computational algorithms (I hate those iPhone clouds...afaik it started with the iPhone 13...clouds get by default a contrast boost), but for example you take a picture that contains a glass full with liquid and you can order the camera/AI to render it as an empty glass! In my view there has to be a backlash to all this shit, a return to some kind of analogue engagement.
Really hard to say where it will go - sit at your desk and prompt you rdrone to go and photograph something for you?
DeleteTo me photography, apart from the technical side, is all about getting out and about and engaging the world with my SELF and my eyes. I know Bruce has disappeared down the iphone rabbit-hole (which he is really enjoying) but I just cannot view a phone as a camera I could have any engagement with and as for getting all 'mistakes' fixed before you even take a picture - where is the fun in that?
The quite whirr of a shutter on a cold morning in a Glen beside a river . . . that's the be-all and end-all for me.