The Future of Photography
Updated: Aug 28
Will AI Choose Our Best Photographs?
Photography has changed enormously since I first picked up a camera.
The cameras have become smarter, the lenses have become better, and the software we use to process our photographs has become almost unbelievably powerful. Even our phones can now produce photographs that, not that long ago, would have required a fairly sophisticated camera.
And now we have Artificial Intelligence entering the picture.
So where does that leave photography?
Will AI eventually choose our best photographs for us? Will the camera decide when to press the shutter? Will Photoshop create the photograph rather than simply help us edit it?
I think the answer to all three questions could eventually be yes.
But there is one thing I don't think we should ever lose sight of:
You still make the final decision.
Photography has always been about decisions
One of the things I talk about a lot in my photography classes is the difference between taking a photograph and making a photograph.
You can walk into a beautiful location, pull out your camera and take a photograph.
But simply pointing the camera at something doesn't necessarily mean you've created a great photograph.
Where did you stand?
What did you include?
What did you leave out?
Did you wait for the light?
Did you wait for the person to move into the right position?
Did you notice the reflection?
Did you choose that particular moment deliberately?
These decisions are what turn a scene into a photograph. The camera is simply the tool that records it.
The rise of AI
This is where I think things are going to get very interesting.
Imagine coming home from a day photographing a landscape and finding that you've taken 500 photographs! At the moment, you might spend an evening going through them one by one. In the future, AI could do the first edit for you. It could look at sharpness, exposure, composition, expressions, movement and duplication and say:
"These are the 25 strongest photographs."
That sounds incredibly useful. And it probably will be.
But what does AI actually mean by strongest?
That's where things become much more complicated.
Will AI understand what you were trying to achieve?
AI can analyse a photograph. It can recognise faces, objects, colours, patterns, sharpness and composition.
But can it understand why you took the photograph?
That's a different question.
Perhaps you've deliberately underexposed an image because you wanted a dark, atmospheric photograph.
Perhaps you've deliberately included an empty space because you wanted the photograph to feel lonely.
Perhaps the image is slightly blurred because you wanted to communicate movement.
Technically, AI might identify these things as faults. Creatively, they might be exactly what makes the photograph work. And this is where I think the human photographer remains incredibly important.
AI could become your first editor
I don't see AI as necessarily replacing the photographer. I see it becoming an incredibly powerful assistant.
Imagine your photography workflow becoming:
Photograph → AI selection → Photographer's selection → Editing → Final photograph
AI could save you hours of sorting through images. It could identify the technically strongest photographs and perhaps even learn what you tend to like. Over time, it might learn that you prefer dramatic skies, strong colours, unusual compositions or a particular type of light.
It wouldn't simply be looking for the technically perfect photograph.
It would be looking for the photograph that fits your style.
That could be incredibly useful.
And then AI moves into the camera
This is where things get even more interesting.
Today's cameras already do an enormous amount of thinking for us.
Autofocus recognises faces and eyes.
Cameras can track moving subjects.
Exposure systems analyse the scene.
Computational photography in mobile phones combines multiple exposures and applies sophisticated processing almost instantly.
The next logical step is for AI to become even more involved.
Imagine photographing a football match. The camera could recognise the players, understand the action and predict when something important is about to happen.
It could capture a burst of photographs and then identify the frame where the player's expression, body position, ball position and composition all come together.
Eventually, AI might even decide when the photograph should be taken.
That's an extraordinary thought.
But does that make the photographer less important?
I actually think it could make the photographer more important.
If the camera handles more of the technical work, the photographer has more time to concentrate on the creative decisions.
The photographer might no longer need to worry quite so much about whether the camera has focused perfectly.
Instead, they can concentrate on:
What am I trying to say?
What am I trying to make the viewer feel?
Why am I taking this photograph?
And those are much harder questions for AI to answer.
The danger of the "perfect" photograph
There is another side to this.
AI will be trained to recognise what tends to work.
It will learn from millions of photographs.
It will understand popular compositions, colours, lighting and styles.
That sounds great.
But there is a danger that it could make photography too safe.
Some of the most memorable photographs break the rules.
They're unusual.
They're imperfect.
They're unexpected.
They're sometimes technically flawed.
A photograph doesn't have to be perfect to be powerful.
In fact, sometimes the imperfection is the photograph.
I wouldn't want AI to look at one of my photographs and say:
"This isn't technically perfect, therefore it isn't your best image."
Because sometimes the photograph that means the most to you isn't the one with the highest technical score.
From camera operator to creative director
Perhaps this is where photography is heading.
The photographer of the future might spend less time actually operating the camera and more time directing the creative process.
Think about a film director.
They don't operate every camera.
They don't edit every frame.
They don't record every sound.
They make decisions.
They have a vision.
They bring all the different tools together to create something.
Photography could move in a similar direction.
The photographer becomes the creative director of the image.
The camera captures.
AI analyses.
Software edits.
But the photographer decides.
And this brings us back to shooting with intent
This is why I think the idea of shooting with intent is going to become even more important as AI develops.
If you're simply taking hundreds of random photographs and hoping that AI will find a good one, you're handing a huge part of the creative process to somebody—or something—else.
But if you know what you're looking for, AI becomes a tool that helps you achieve it.
There is a big difference between:
"Take 500 photographs and find me a good one."
and:
"This is the photograph I'm trying to create. Help me find the strongest version of it."
The second approach still has a photographer at the centre.
The camera isn't the artist
I've always believed that buying a better camera doesn't automatically make you a better photographer.
The same principle applies to software.
Photoshop doesn't make you creative. AI doesn't make you creative. A £5,000 camera doesn't make you creative.
They give you more possibilities and what you do with those possibilities is up to you.
You can create an amazing photograph with a basic camera.
You can create an amazing photograph with a phone.
You can create an amazing photograph with a professional camera and a complicated Photoshop workflow.
The equipment changes.
The creative process remains.
So, will AI choose our best photographs?
Yes, I think it probably will.
It will help us sort, analyse, select, edit and perhaps eventually even capture photographs.
It may become our assistant, our editor and possibly even part of the camera itself.
But I don't think we should let it become the artist.
AI can tell you which photograph it thinks is technically strongest.
It can tell you which image resembles your previous work.
It can even predict which photograph people might respond to.
But you decide which photograph matters. And that's an important distinction. Because photography isn't simply about creating technically perfect images.
It's about seeing something.
Having an idea.
Making a decision.
And communicating that idea to somebody else.
The future isn't Human versus AI
I don't think the future of photography is going to be:
Human versus AI.
I think it will be:
Human + Camera + AI + Editing Software.
Each one brings something different to the process.
The location gives you the raw material.
The light creates the atmosphere.
The camera captures the information.
AI can help analyse and organise it.
Editing software can help shape it.
But the photographer provides the vision.
And ultimately:
You still make the final decision.
That's why I don't think AI will kill photography. It may actually give photographers more freedom than ever before.
The technology will continue to change.
The cameras will become smarter.
The software will become more powerful.
AI will become increasingly involved in selecting, processing and perhaps even capturing our photographs.
But there is one thing I hope never changes.
The photographer standing there, looking at a scene and thinking:
"That's it. That's the photograph I want."
Because that's where photography really begins.
You don't just take photographs.
You create them.
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