In re: The Real Reason You Should Use Your Own Images in Your Writing
Another Rebuttal? But, But, But…?
M0ootherrrr, they’ve triggered him again! This time it’s Unsplash (I think).
So I needed an illustration to represent this rebuttal/reply.
But I wasn’t sure I had one. Medium’s one-click onboard handy-dandy freestock Unsplash was no help; I couldn’t even think what to ask for, but this refutal is about using your own pitchers instead of canned freebies. Fair enough.
Define “own.”
This “Very Old Man with Antique Camera” is an AI-generated synthetic image from a simple prompt I wrote. The ancient feller looks sort’a like me before retouching (and oh boy, do I ever retouch — him hates getting old). The camera is amusing because it looks like it’s made from discarded oatmeal tubes and black duck* tape. We built cameras like this in school. The guy might be modeled on me since he apparently can’t see out of his right eye. At least Fotor AI seems to be getting the hands better.
* It is duck tape; duct tape is for ducts; duck tape covers everything else.
So, is there a topic here? Um, yes; yes, there is:
My esteemed friends and colleagues, Gareth Willey and GE McKerrihan, published intriguing stories concerning the images we use to illustrate the pieces we write. The lads make powerful arguments for using our own images/photographs/illustrations instead of (especially) free stock pictures that may or may not depict the points we wish to make.
We should be using our own images/photographs/illustrations as opposed to free stock pictures, which are repetitive, boring, and possibly illegal.
Many of us rely overmuch on Medium’s built-in link to Unsplash, a vast free-to-use library of mostly photographs that we can plug into a story with a couple of clicks to illustrate a point we are making, viz:
(I always love these guys recklessly holding their fabulously $pendy DSLRs and MILCs with their neck straps dangling (stylishly, uselessly), so that what? The logo on the strap (viz. “NIKON” (see above) will at least pinpoint what it was before it was smithereens on the paving stones?)
Crying? There’s no CRYING in PHOTOGRAPHY!
I wrote the prompt, “A writer and photographer,” anticipating that Unsplash would dutifully spit out one single picture of a writer — photographing,
— or a photographer writing,
— or processing photos,
— or seeming to do something, anything a person who is both a writer and a photographer might do.
Nah-ah.
What I got was (allegedly — I didn’t go through them all) 10,000 pictures of writers and/or writing implements (see under “typewriter”),
and another 10,000 images of photographers, or at least people waving cameras about and looking trendy.
I did not get anything remotely like the selfie below, which at least purports to show me ostensibly “working” on processing pictures at my computer. I could be writing, right? Everyone knows that photography is derived from the Greek words “photos,” meaning light, and “graphos,” meaning drawing. Drawing with light. Drawing is a kind of writing, w̸r̸i̸t̸e̸?̸?̷ right? Amirite?
So we (me and my eminent compeers) think you wordsmiths should stop using dull, repetitive, often irrelevant freestock illustrations, instead grabbing your ubiquitous smartphones and taking your own damn’ pitchers. So there!
But here’s the thing: I and my august confederates acknowledge that we have an unfair edge; we are all photographers.
My distinguished associates and I are photographers!
GE and I have a century (really) of experience between us. Gareth is no piker (just look at his work) and strives to catch and pass us.
For us, illustrating our articles with our own photos is easy-peasy.
For you, maybe, not so much.
Once, a boss told me only to bring him a problem with a proposed solution. Gareth suggests, failing all else, take a picture of your cat with your phone and use it as your banner.
I assure you that no one will notice that the image has nothing to do with the writing. People just want to read what you have to say. — Gareth
Ummm…
I can’t get on board with that, but it’s a thought. I tend to question that “no one will notice” because I certainly will, but that’s me. I think it is important that the picture relates to the topic. Your kitteh smearing kitteh hair all over your bed, not so much.
I, being allergic, am biased.
I write and illustrate photo essays. I make nearly 100% of the images I use one way or ‘nother.
This “woodland” selfie is of me, by me, and most of it is as phony as a three-dollar bill, as we Yanks say. I am too embarrassed to show the original “concept art,” but it involved a not-very-good makeshift sort-of “green screen” (don’t ask). The rest was cobbled together using post-processing skills and techniques and chutzpah.
There is so much AI in this thing that t’ain’t funny. I wasn’t even outdoors! I was in my “studio.” The background is thanks to Adobe Generative Fill AI. The subject (that would be me) has been retouched, so probably 20–25 years have been illegitimately shaved off. As an experiment, I even asked one of the AIs to iron my shirt (I am a widower and a bachelor — ‘nuff said); it did a pretty good job, and I didn’t have to take off the shirt.
Sniff? Am I still wearing it? Uh, oh.
What’s real? Um, the camera and lens, and the hat — the hat’s real. Welp, at least I fully disclosed. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
OKAY, okay, stop badgering! Here is the silk purse I started with (quit laughing):
I once wrote a piece about how I am a frustrated photography teacher. I write a lot of tutorial-type stuff. I did one about holding your camera to get sharper handheld photos:
If you return to the young woman holding her camera vertically (up-and-down “portrait” mode), she is holding it as most of us instinctively do, with her arm over her head. That’s so she can get her right index finger onto the shutter button.
But that hold has her unsupported elbow waving about in space, not making a solid triangle with the camera at its apex.
It’s not wrong, but it’s not as stable as the typical horizontal (or “landscape”) hold where our elbows are tight into our sides. I got many tips from old newspicture people who suggested using the shift-your-grip hold I’m demoing on the right: my elbows are down for greater stability, and the shutter is tripped with my thumb. That’s the secret. Nowhere is it written that you must use your index finger (and let's not open the southpaw can of worms — it’s a right-handed world).
Now, I could write reams of captivating descriptive prose about how to do that—
— or I could just take a pitcher.
But how are you, non-photographer-non-graphic-designer scriveners, supposed to do that?
If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.
We call them illustrations because they are meant to illustrate — to show something. Sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but it must be the right one. (Cute cat, Gareth; I noticed.)
On those rare occasions I go hunting for a particular stock picture, it is frustrating, time-consuming, and occasionally impossible, as illustrated earlier by the “a writer and photographer” prompt. I could not quickly get what I wanted. I wasn’t about to slog through 10,000 pictures to find picture-perfect; who would? The photos I selected above were within the first five clicks; they made my point in only five clicks. They’re not perfect; they are only good enough.
That, I suspect, is where all the boring, repetitious stuff comes from: it’s the first few clicks and “Oh, that’s good enough.” We yumans are impatient. Git’r’done.
Perhaps this newfangled hot-button AI thingy might come in handy. Could this be a solution to the “own work” conundrum?
Did I create this (admittedly bizarre but fun) picture? Fotor AI-generated or synthesized it (the new-this-week term “synthetic photography” is trending) from an arcane prompt I wrote.
Maybe it’s a synthesized collaboration? Me and My AI?
The point is it was not plucked wholesale from a stock site, free or paid. It is a composition involving a live human (that would be me) utilizing an AI chatbot as a tool, not that different from a camera, pencil, or paintbrush. As a Google subscriber, I’ve been playing with FOTOR because it is free to me. It’s not Midjourney — yet — but it’s improving. I need to learn to write better prompts, and it needs to learn to do better hands.
Even I occasionally use freestock, mostly PEXELS, because I am a contributing member. I wrote the below piece a year ago but illustrated it entirely with works from Pexels.
I had nothing in my archives to tell the story I wanted.
I couldn’t grab my camera and rush into the street to find and photograph the scenes I needed. AI was just peeking over the hedge and not very good then. I can neither draw nor paint, hence photographer yada yada et cetera.
The obvious solution was to find pictures of real people that exemplified my specific talking points. I looked for captures that others had made that leapt off the page and moved my heart, the photographs I’d have made myself had I the opportunity to make them. I love the ones I found.
“Have You Seen the Rainbow?” I think is one of the most important pieces I have ever written. I am proud of it. I wish I could have had the opportunity to photograph it myself, but I love what my contributing photographers provided, and I pay it forward by donating to Pexels.
Could I, should I have paid Getty or Shutterstock (where I am also a contributing member) for the needed images?
Hm.
Ethical dilemma.
I was about to go off on a lengthy riff on ethics, but I think that’s beyond the scope. I am that wishy-washy “Ya do wot works” guy.
Wrapping up:
My venerated chums across the aisle are right, but I still think the pictures we use to represent our articles should be relevant to and illustrative of our stories.
If you are willing to post to TikTok or Instagram, or any other platform, you should be okay with posting your same “own work” to Medium. Don’t worry so much about the image quality; worry about the message.
I consider that using AI to create synthetic art is legitimate since you have the idea and use AI to realize it.
But I also think using a stock picture, free or purchased, is okay if it’s relative to the point. Do try to scroll a little further, though. Everybody using the same ten images “because they are there” is tedious.
Now, shoo — get back to work.
📸As always, gratitude for looking in. I sincerely appreciate it! Questions in the comments will be answered promptly.😊👍
