Are D'Day images created with AI or digital rendering?
OCTOBER 11, 2023
I never gave this any thought until the question came up twice in the past week. The answer is no. I do not use AI or digital rendering techniques in any of my art. Every image is purely the result of a variety of intentional camera movement techniques, most of which are performed in my studio on very simple items like tissue paper, plastic bags, and recently glass jars, bottles, and a variety of home decor.
What makes my images so unusual is the combination of lighting and the camera movement. I mostly use LEDs to backlight my scenes which are usually a couple of the above items placed into a black box with LED lights beneath them. The image included with this post - After the Apocalypse - is a really good example. If I were not familiar with ICM photography, my first guess would be that the image were either created by AI or a digital rendering. But this photograph was the consequence of a combination of a straight and circular camera motion with an exposure time of about 2 seconds. The different colors are a result of using several different colors of plastic bags, and the light area is where only a white plastic piece was between the camera and the background lights.
It typically takes me about 500-750 shots of a scene to get the results I am looking for and post processing occurs in either Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop using techniques commonly employed by photographers to finalize their images.
So, no...AI or digital rendering is not involved in my art. It all comes out of the camera.