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- [00:00]
A
There's this debate going on as to how do you define something that's real? Because AI generated images are everywhere. We're seeing them more and more and more and more. There's also an inherent fear within photographers. What does AI going to mean for me as a photographer? But maybe we're asking the wrong question.
- [00:19]
B
I don't think people who make that argument are really looking at what is real. And for me, the experience and the reactions and the feelings that people have during the creating of the session, that's what's real to me.
- [00:30]
C
What our clients buy, they're not buying based on the camera you use. They're not buying based on the technique. They're buying based on how that photograph makes them feel and the message that it sends. What the clients are looking for and believe is real. And what they're looking for is something that truly represents who they are, something that matters to them, something that speaks to them and that becomes real for them.
- [00:57]
A
Hey, hey, hey. And welcome to the Difference Maker Revolution podcast. And it's Steve all the way in Australia, where it's a Friday morning. We've Janine all the way in Tampa where it's a Thursday afternoon or Thursday morning even, and mid morning maybe. And here in Dublin, Ireland, it's sort of getting close to home time. So we are recording this podcast for you and it's a debate that's going on in the industry everywhere right now. And it's what makes a photograph real? There's this debate going on as to how do you define something that's real? Because AI generated images are everywhere, right? We're seeing them more and more and more and more. There's also an inherent fear within photographers. You know, what does AI going to mean for me as a photographer? But maybe we're asking the wrong question, Steve. Janine, what if the value of photography was never the camera?
- [01:55]
C
Well, judging by what our clients buy, they're not buying based on the camera you use, they're not buying based on the technique, they're buying based on how that photograph makes them feel and the message that it sends. And so from a professional photography point of view, where you've decided to
- [02:17]
A
be
- [02:17]
C
commissioned by clients to take their photos, I think we should be talking about what's real in the context of what the clients are looking for and believe is real. And what they're looking for is something that truly represents who they are, something that matters to them, something that speaks to them and is real for them, something that they see in their child that is unique that only a mother sees and that becomes real for them. Think it's not about the camera you use or the filters or the AI, you know, because, let's face it, Photoshop is run, you know, with AI these days. But what's really to a client is whether you've captured the essence of who my child is and what my child means to me, and whether that photograph speaks to me in a way that makes it valuable.
- [03:10]
A
So, Steve, what I'm hearing from you is that photography was never about whether a photograph was clicked by a human. What I'm hearing from you is something actually. Do you know what's really, really interesting? You guys have heard me talk about this before, so I'm sure you're bored at me talking about it at this stage. But I love history programs, like, and I love series based on history, so, you know, Vikings and all of that stuff.
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C
You know, love that series. But I remember.
- [03:38]
A
I remember watching the Medici, which I loved, too. You know, just a story of the banks in Florence and all that. And there was one scene that just jumped out at me, and it was, I think, was of Boricelli, and he was photographing one of the Medicis, right? And he spent days and days and days and days talking to this woman to understand what was the message she wanted to portray, how did she want the world to be seen? How did she want to feel when she saw the painting, right? So days and days and days of these deep conversations before he ever lifted a pencil or charcoal or whatever they used in those days to even start to sketch it out. And I went, oh, my gosh. Like, the artists, the great artists knew what this was about, but somehow we've lost that in our industry.
- [04:30]
C
You know, I think we have because we've been conditioned to chase awards and to understand what the judges are looking for, understand what it takes to win an award, a category, an international acclaim. And that's, I suppose, one critic or one person that we're photographing for. But when we're being commissioned by a client, the person we are photographing, you know, we're photographing for is that person that we need to do exactly what you're talking about, have those discussions on what is your message? How do you want to be seen in the world? How do you want to be remembered? What is it that you're known for? What is the message that you want to carry forward? Who's the audience? Like, who are the people that you want to send this message to? And that's what brings that person's Photograph to life, that understanding and that message, and that then becomes real. And it's so often, you know, we'd get really excited because we thought we cracked it. We got this incredible photo. It was perfectly lit. The photo's gonna love it. And then they picked the most boring one that we thought that was the most boring one because it was the one that spoke the most to them, and it was the one that did exactly that. While we were learning about all of this and building our skills in having those conversations and understanding, it was a learning curve, and we had to get that feedback from our clients. And a lot of the times that feedback is what were they actually prepared to spend their. Which photos made the wall, which were the ones that actually were so valuable that they decided to display in their home, and which ones are the ones that they wanted to hide away on a hard drive?
- [06:04]
A
So, Janine, now that we've talked about what makes a photograph real, which is really about how it makes your client feel every single day. Right. You know, you mentioned before we went live about Ansel Adams. Right. You were telling us a story about this debate over real has been there nearly forever in the photography. Yeah, I remember. I remember reading something where even the artists used to say, this photography thing is not real. You know, what we do is real.
- [06:32]
B
This photography is not real art. They're just clicking a button. No, but it has. It has been a debate. I. You know, it's always interesting to me the different sides that people take on this. And Ansel Adams did his work wasn't straight out of the camera. He was the one who pretty much perfected the work in the. In the dark room, you know, and actually, the dark room classes I took when I was taking art classes were all based upon his methods in the darkroom. And I remember my darkroom teacher at the time telling us about how he was not mocked. I don't think that's the right word, but how people were like, he's not truly adhering to the art of photography because he's manipulating the portraits, or not the portraits, but the landscapes in the darkroom. Right. Could you imagine his work now without that? That was the art. The manipulation that he did in the darkroom. It was fantastic. And everybody learned so much from that when darkroom was the way that we printed our photographs. And so then I remember, you know, Photoshop came out and everything was, oh, you can't. You can't retouch that way. You have to retouch it still by. By hand on the actual photograph. And your lab needs to do, you know, whatever.
- [07:38]
C
Neg retouching. Remember? Neg retouching.
- [07:41]
B
Yes. You know, and so we've always had these debates and it's as techniques and technology and things change, those who did it one way don't want it to move to the something new. And there'll always be early adopters that do move and do see the new ways of things as a way forward, as a new way of pushing their art forward and things like that. So, yeah, this debate has been there since the dawn of time and you still have, you know, photojournalists, like, oh, my gosh, you know, they would cry at any thought of modifying a photograph because that's not real. But painters, yeah, they're like photographers. You're not real artists. You know, you're just clicking a button. So it is. It's a debate that has always been. And it's still here now.
- [08:26]
A
It's interesting, isn't it, the way history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes, you know, that we, we go through these ever evolving technology, technological changes, and the same thing happens over and over and over again. So what you're saying then is that this whole argument about anything that AI is involved with is not real. Really, Everything we've done as an industry is not real, from the dark room days to the Photoshop. Like, what defines real? Like, surely if we retouch any part of a photo or an image, it's no longer real.
- [09:00]
B
Agree. It is interesting because I've heard people make this argument and yet I've seen the end product that they produce and that is definitely retouched. You know, there is definite that that's not the way the person looked walking into their studio or working out or walking out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, what's so wrong with that? What is wrong with taking. And this is like, you know, let's just even use like our magical sessions that we do here at the studio, you know, and so we do them for a variety of things. For children. I mean, my. The kids that come in and do like a Minecraft set, they're not actually in a Minecraft set. I know, I hate to shatter this for you. They're not actually in the game.
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C
What? Janine.
- [09:44]
B
I know, right? Amazing. You know, but guess what? For the child, that whole, that whole coming in, posing, creating the idea, designing their background that they're going to use to put into their scene, they're part of the creation of their finished piece of art. They're part of being the creator of It, Right. It's fantastic. They get to have a hand in it. It's real for them. I mean, yeah, they weren't really in the game. They weren't the little character, but the end product and the actual experience for them was a real experience. They got to pretend that they were actually in the game. They got to create their own set. They got to create what the finished artwork would look like to go in their room or in their playroom or wherever it was going to be displayed. How can you tell me that's not real? You know, do we have to use AI or. Actually, when we started doing these, we were using strictly our Photoshop skills. Now with the use of AI, it makes it a tad easier. We can blend everything way faster, way easier. So great. Now we can make more, you know, and so it's real. Anybody who tells me it's not, I will, I will come after them because I see the look on those kids faces and I see the look on the parents faces when we present the finished piece to them. And it is definitely real. The entire experience is real for them. And they now have this artwork that showcases their favorite game, what they believe they can do. And let's face it, like, it's not like the Minecraft movie was actually filmed in a Minecraft set. You know, I mean, that's all generated too. So it's. Yeah, to me, it's. It's an interesting argument because I just, I don't know, Ronan, I don't think, I don't think people who make that argument are really looking at what is real. And for me, the experience and the reactions and the feelings that people have during the creating of the session and then seeing their artwork and then their artwork being displayed in their home, that's what's real to me.
- [11:38]
A
Steve, it's what you said earlier, right, that it doesn't matter what client we choose to serve or what client we want to serve with. It's how it makes them feel. Right. And that can be different for so many people.
- [11:50]
C
Yeah. And it's just a tool that is helping us achieve the message. It's helping us achieve that end result. And I know going into, you know, you go to Imaging USA and there's all these Photoshop classes and you look at, you know, the photographs that they started with, then they take you through a series of, let's call them, enhancements. The end product is nothing like the real photo or the original photo. But I think Photoshop has become the art now where you can almost take any photograph and create a masterpiece through the painting through Photoshop, and being able to work that photograph using all different types of techniques. The end result is something that a lot of people win awards with and acclaim, and it's accepted by the industry as, you know, incredible. And they do look incredible. That was all you all using some form of digital. Digital manipul. What's the difference? Like back in the day when I was a boy, you needed to learn how to use a light meter and you were loading film into the back of a camera and you had to get it right in camera. We were one of the early adopters of digital and we were highly criticized back then because it wasn't real, it wasn't taken on film, and it doesn't require you to know how to photograph, apparently, because, you know, you weren't using a light meter. You didn't have to know how to pose because suddenly you could liquefy to make somebody look thinner rather than, you know, using shadows and posing and understanding how to pose somebody. So it all comes in cycles. It's just, it comes in a different form, doesn't it?
- [13:34]
A
Yeah, so, so what I'm hearing is, is that, you know, the ability to create great art or a great photograph or a great image or whatever your language is for that is, is getting easier and easier and easier and easier as technology. But creating meaningful photography that means something to your client is rare. So if we can accept that AI is not the enemy. Right, But AI is actually enabling us to be more real for our clients. Janine, have you any practical examples of how you're using AI in your business to help with that?
- [14:11]
B
So I already gave one. Right. We're using AI a lot in background generation, whether it be in backgrounds that we create custom for the studio and actually print or backgrounds that we are adding in digitally per the child's creation. Right. And so we're using a little bit of both for that. As we all know, I am wildly a fan of AI and KCB for helping the studio with marketing and content creation because that was taking hours. Oh my God, so many hours to create content before. And now with the tools that we've programmed through Difference Maker, that has really significantly decreased the amount of time I have to spend doing that, which guess what, that means I actually get it done. Right. And so that to me, is real. You know, before I either was slaving away and doing it at night, sitting on the couch, pretending to pay attention to my children, or it wasn't getting done. And now I, I, I do it, you know, I have my time set aside content with kcb, and it's done. And I've gotten my nights back where I'm not having to do that while watching TV or movies or in between gameplay and puzzles and stuff like that. So those are the two big ways we're starting to incorporate it a little bit more. And in our retouching, too, right? We have some tools where. Oh, my gosh, like Steve knows. Wait, if you have. Let's say we have an entire senior session where the senior has really bad acne, and we might have 30 images because they're doing a complete collection. Rob, my digital artist, used to have to open up each one of those images and hand retouch each face with the acne. And you know how much time that takes. Well, now there is tools before us, and we open one image, we, with slider tools, retouch the face, and then apply it to all 30 images. It's done in less than a minute. And it used to be a day's worth of work, if not more for Rob, and now it's done in less than a minute. And that, to me, is just incredible. And you know what's real is that senior seeing how amazing they look, because that's how they feel. Like they, you know, and I always. I always call it the love blinders. You know, like, when we see our children, we see them with love, and if they have acne on their face, our. Our minds erase it, you know, and so that's what we're doing with the portraits, too. It just kind of erases the. The acne that's there. Because as parents, we love our kids and we don't see it anyways. And so. But now that can be done in a matter of minutes, as opposed to a matter of hours or days. And so I'm a big fan glass glare, too. Oh, my God. I'm sorry. That's real. For me, time saving.
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C
That was a nightmare.
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B
Glass glare is a freaking nightmare. And I can now do a little slider, and it's gone on every image. We do it now before we even. That's one of the things we will do before actually showing clients. We don't really do a lot of retouching before we show clients or portraits, but I'll get rid of glass glare, and it's gone. Look, aren't I so amazing? In the camera room, there's no glass glare, you know, and so it's just little things like that running their simple techniques, and it just saves so much time. It makes the client so happy, and now they can see each other through the eyes, that they actually see each other instead of, you know, when you go and you pick on all the little details of the things you don't like about yourself. So I. Anything that we can use AI for to increase the experience or enhance the experience for our clients, I'm all about.
- [17:36]
C
I want to go back to Janine because I think, you know, what she said is profound in that, you know, she's using KCB to get all that marketing and what that's given you. Because you can get it done so quickly, it means you can be more consistent. And what that then means is that more people in the world get to experience what you're giving them. More children get to experience that joy of creating that magic and live in that wonder and in that. In that belief. So what it's created is time for you to actually get real with your clients. You no longer have to spend, you know, hours and hours and hours on the marketing, because KCB does that for you. And now you can get real and spend more time with your clients. But not only that, share that gift that you're giving with so many more people. And that's real. All these things that save you time, give you more time, more contact time with real human beings. Because, like, I know when we first started and we went to digital and then we had to learn Photoshop, and then Photoshop became an obsession, we were spending more time behind the screen than what we were with the client. Like, by the time you added up the phone calls, the photo session, the sale, sometimes there was more time spent Photoshopping all those photos than the entire time we've actually spent with that human being or that family. And what that now gives you back is that real time where you don't have to be stuck behind a screen and you're now spending time with real people, not manipulating stuff. I'm ranting. Sorry. That's all I heard when you said that, Janine. That's all I heard.
- [19:22]
A
Yeah. And what you guys are saying is that AI is a tool, just like every other tool that is developed within our industry, and it's providing you more talk time to build better client relationships and create more meaningful work. But something you also said, Janine, was it's given you more time to be present with your children, which is equally as important, right?
- [19:43]
B
It is equally as important. And it's a gift. Honestly, I find that to be a gift of the time is a gift. And so I look at it as giving the gift of time back to those of us who obsess about our, our business and spend a lot of time in it.
- [19:57]
A
So Steve, tell us why humans still crave photography and how AI will probably even amp amplify that desire for difference maker photographers.
- [20:06]
C
We are the most photographed generation of all time. Everybody has a phone in their pocket. You can't go to an event without looking through people's screens in front of you. Like you're at a wedding and everyone's got their phone out. You're at a, at a concert and everyone's got their phone out. You're at a restaurant and their screens are in front of them. And although we are the most photographed generation of all time, we're also the loneliest generation of all time. And there is just so much distraction that people are craving for someone to see them and for someone to bother to understand them and to a certain degree for that person to take the time to understand themselves and learn, you know, and see what other people see in them. And so I feel like photography has become not just capturing a photo, it's about helping somebody discover their meaning and their purpose and the gifts that they give to those people that matter to them and for people to feel important again, to feel relevant again, and to feel like they belong. People have stopped putting family photos up in their homes for whatever reason because they were so accessible. They're on our iPhones, they're on, they're everywhere. And there has never been so much, I suppose, I don't know how to put this, never been. So suicide is at an all time high, especially amongst teens. And a lot of it is that loss of identity, that loss of sense of belonging. And we just one little thing that can help somebody, one service that can help somebody feel important again and hear I love you from somebody because we bother, because of what we do, to have those conversations that open communication and are looking for what do you love and why does this matter, this person matter to you? Because too much of the world is looking for drama. And so I think people want to be reminded of what's good about that person. I want to be reminded of why this person matters in my life and what are those gifts that they bring to this family. And that's what photography has, I believe, transitioned into. It has so much meaning and it has so much value. We're not a luxury at all anymore. It's something that people crave and people need.
- [22:31]
A
So, Janine, what do you believe the future is for not just photographers, but the industry if we continue on the path of making it all about the image.
- [22:41]
B
Well, I don't think it's a positive future if it's all about the image. I mean, right now as it is, if it's just about the image, people can use AI to create their own. You see it all the time on Facebook, and people are very excited about it. You know, look at this headshot I created with AI look at this photo of me in this Christmas scene I created with AI, you know, and so if it's just about the image, people are just gonna do it on their own. So it has to be about so much more than that. And I mean, that's been. You know, and I know we felt that fear when cell phones came out and the iPhone camera was as. I mean, the iPhone camera is better than my first digital camera was, you know, and so, I mean, it has more technology than the computers that landed the, you know, the. On the moon, the Apollo. It's right. So I know people had that fear when cell phones came out, too, that people aren't going to need photographers because they can just take the photos on their own. And that never actually came to be. Now, did it affect things? Yes, you know, I think it affected things, especially amongst teenagers and high school seniors. I noticed it the most because they're completely content with that because they have no nostalgia built in. They have no need for a memory yet because they don't understand it, but the parents do, and the parents are the ones who are buying. And. And so. But again, even with that, if it's about the image, there's no need for us. It has to be more, has to be more than just the image. It has to be the experience. It has to be how someone feels. It has to be creating that space for people to have moments together and feel things together and for the unexpected to happen. And I think Steve talked about that earlier, and it's the unexpected that AI can never reproduce, can't create something that's not there. And so that's, you know, we taught. We have a lot of those conversations with our potential clients, like, we don't know what's going to happen when your child sits down with that birthday cake. But we'll find out, you know, and that's what we're going to photograph, and that's your child in action. And so can AI create a photo of a child smashing a birthday cake? Yeah, and I've had clients send those to me at their inspiration photos. Perfect little baby. But that's not. That's that's not real, Ronan. And they know that because that's not actually their while interacting and doing something the parent doesn't get to experience, watching their child eat a cake for the first time. And those are all the things as humans that we want. We want those experiences. We want to experience things as a family, as people. And it's interesting, I actually heard and this quote kind of ties into this too. And it's, you know, you know, I live right here next to Disney. And you'll hear people say, why waste the time and money on taking your kids to Disney when they're young and they're never going to remember it. Yeah, but as the parent, you do, and it's their childhood is your parenthood. Why shouldn't I get to have that memory of my child experiencing Disney for the first time? Even if they can't remember it right, it's still my experience too. And so that to me is so like, these are experiences. We want them, we want to have them, and we want to interact with the people that we love. And our studios need to become that for folks. We need to be the one that gives them a reason to come together and do something together.
- [25:36]
C
Janine, when you talked about the unexpected, it really hit home to me. It's that moment of the unexpected where we capture that real expression, that real person, that real, that realness. And yeah, that's been my BFO for the whole, the whole thing.
- [25:56]
A
So what I'm hearing from both of you is that it was never the camera that made a photo real. Right. It's always been about that human connection. And what AI allows us to do is it allows us to automate all the non client facing time we have so that we can spend more time creating meaningful experiences for our client and creating work with them, co creating, work with them that makes them feel a certain way, the way they want to be felt. And that's where the value is. So AI is not the enemy, guys.
- [26:29]
C
And that's what's real to our clients, that time you spend with them.
- [26:32]
A
And that's where they see the value. All right, so stop debating about whether a photo is real or it's not real. What only matters is how you make your client feel with the experiences that you provide them. So please, please, please join the difference maker revolution. Join us by clicking the link below and we will guide you and work with you to help you create a meaningful photographic experience for your clients where they will reward you for the value you deliver and meaning. We'll see you on the inside.
- [27:02]
B
See you guys there.
- [27:03]
C
See you there, everyone.