Putting a prompt into ChatGPT or Claude isn't it. Yes, these AIs with easy consumer access keep improving and prompting keeps getting easier - so easy in fact, that last year's "hot tip" to just become a prompt engineer to future-proof yourself is now already obsolete.

What AI can't do

AI cannot, and will never be able to:

• capture the real emotion on a real face of a real person
• show the exact energy with which a shopkeeper greets a customer or with which a nurse treats a patient
• accurately capture all the tiny details that make a human, and that make you distinctly different from anyone else

You can't "generate" this

AI also cannot, and will never be able to SEE you, and respond to you. A photograph is so much more than just a frozen moment in time. It is an interaction between the photographer and the person in front of the camera. Between two humans who each bring their feelings, their memories and history and their professional education and experience to this very meeting. It is not a one-way street but a dialogue. In over 20 years of using a camera to create portraits of people, I have listened to an incredible number of life stories. Of successes, of losses, of tragedies and happy moments. My images are a response to what is revealed to me. Here lies the magic of a photographic portrait, in that it shows more than just what you look like. It shows how it feels to meet you. And it is this magic that is imperative to use in advertising, because another eternal truth is that emotion is what sells.

The use of AI in photography

AI-powered processes have long since become a part of professional photography. Yes, you read that correctly: even us, who have every reason to avoid and detest AI, are using it. We were not given a choice. In a competitive market, with a de-facto monopoly of editing software, we have been drip-fed "improvements" and "advantages" that we cannot opt out of. We can, however, still decide how to use the tools we have. It is ultimately down to the image creator's personal morals to decide if a tree should be added where there was none, or if a particular effect should be done in-camera or... well. Without throwing shade on anyone, I can say for myself that I have spent the last 20 years learning lighting techniques, working with experimental methods, all sorts of "gimmicks", filters, you name it.

Simply put, I don't like "faking it". And if you were to ask me for an advertising photo that has you, a local shop owner, sitting on a beach, sipping on a cocktail while sitting next to a giraffe in a smoking, I'd rather have a conversation with you about how to build a credible brand so that you can actually sell your product to the people who live down your street.

"But this is better than what we used to have"

Is it really? There have always been bad Photoshop jobs, and badly made adverts go back as far as glue and scissors. But even the slightly generic looking Canva ad that uses template elements still has more personality than a prompted event flyer, because it was put together by a human. Because a real person made a decision. Or maybe because it doesn't give you that shoddy feeling of advertising with something that isn't your own (and is, in fact, based on stolen art) and isn't even real.

If you think that a graphic designer or photographer is too expensive, I want you to think again: about the very real cost of cutting corners. About the overwhelming AI-fatigue that people express online ("Anyone else getting fed up with these AI ads?"). About the question why anyone should be bothered to buy your product, if you can't be bothered to put effort into your brand's appearance.