The most modern of modern photography
Still Captivated by A.I. in Photography
We could always do these things; A.I. just makes it easier and more realistic.*
*Provided it is applied ethically and disclosed.
Why is an apparently unfinished duplex at sunrise leding a story on using Artificial Intelligence in digital photography post-production? Funny you should ask…
Ace the A.I. became a close buddy of mine last year when Adobe Photoshop Beta was updated with astounding new AI tools. I go awaaay back into the last century in photography, working entirely in film ‘cuz it was what there was. Doing fancy tricks frequently required a team of creatives. The photographer made the initial picture and printed it (almost always a print). We did a lot of darkroom manipulating, dodging, burning, et cetera, to make a strong base for the next steps.
I taught myself to hand retouch large format negatives with combinations of pencils, dyes, and even etching to remove density, which was Überrisky physically since a slip essentially destroyed the negative (ooops).
I never taught myself to airbrush a print to remove distractions, so that got farmed out to a professional. I’d make a master 11x14-inch high-resolution print for the airbrusher. When their work returned, it had to be rephotographed, inevitably losing quality. I hated that.
Nowadays we don’t have to do none of that stuff.
Assignment: “‘Finish’ an under-construction house.”
This was a first-semester exercise. Out of thirty-three starters, I was one of only two to actually complete it. The technique was called pasteup because replacement images were cut out, feathered, and pasted over construction debris.
Pasteup. How many crusty oldsters remember this? Or have ever done one? Of my original class of thirty-three, I was one of two to complete it. I got my A by default.
The illusion of “completion” was done by taking pictures of other things to paste on, covering over the messy original. The lawn had to be lit from the same angle as the original to look natural. Ditto the driveway. The flower border was cobbled from a single shot printed smaller and smaller for the perspective. I think I added the flowers with white-out.
Each piece had to be carefully feathered on the back side (too complex to describe in words) so the seams wouldn’t cast shadows in the copy negative. I used rubber cement, knowing the acid in it would eventually destroy the master, but it only had not to stain long enough to rephotograph.
Compare them side-by-side; you can see that the print from the copy negative is mushy, and the clouds I tried to double-print in are obviously double-printed. I never could figure out how to extend the sharp shadows across the garage onto the driveway. I can’t even figure out how to do it in Photoshop.
“Finishing” the Sunrise House
Fifty-two years after my first pasteup, essentially everything in photography has profoundly changed. No more negative to positive, no more tedious retouching or double printing — we can do things now that weren’t even dreamed of a half-century ago.
A Habitat for Humanity crew built this house from the ground up. My son is on this crew, which has now moved on to clearing a vacant property to build another one.
I was invited to photograph the duplex in early April. It was move-in ready, but some finishing touches are left to the new owners. Still, in the spirit of my school assignment and armed with my awesome new AI tools, Photoshop generated the lawn, including the backgrounds (note how the AI has taken the perspective into account), added some topiary in the back, cleaned up stray debris such as sawhorses, and finished painting the trim. I even added some pretty dawn clouds.
The littlest First Nations Dancer
Lincoln, Nebraska, held its Annual Asian Harvest Festival in September 2023, the first time since 2020, when the Great Plague (COVID-19) put the kibosh on anything involving crowds of people. The entertainment included this family of First Nation bell dancers, Grandma, Mom, two older sisters, and finally, this tiny dynamo of boundless energy. S/he (?) was all over the stage, landing only to spring back into the air. I was shooting in slow burst mode (three FPS), and had I been shooting film, I would have burned through most of a couple of 36-exposure rolls. I composited three more poses to suggest the exuberant liveliness of the dance.
Found Friendly Face
I have covered this little building before but recently created a new version. The structure is a Pentecostal Temple. Sometime in its past, something caused a chunk of stucco to fall away, revealing the coarse brick beneath. Someone slapped some bright red paint on the scar, et voilà…
I used Photoshop’s new AI-generated fill to seamlessly remove the entire bus shelter. I also did a better job outlining her lips and filling in gaps; I removed the red color from the underlying brick to simulate teeth. Ain’t she sweet?
Steam Engine weathering slowly outdoors.
Illinois Central 2–8–2 ‘Mikado’ no. 1518 (1923) (Link)
Illinois Central had maintenance shops in Paducah, Kentucky. On static display by the flood wall is Illinois Central 2–8–2 Mikado number 1518; she’s pretty rusty, clearly not maintained, but also not in a shed or behind a fence, which makes her accessible for pictures. I was actually somewhat surprised that she still has her light, number boards and bell since she is unprotected. 1516 was built by Lima Locomotive Works in 1923, but a website notes that the squared-off sand dome (at the center of the top of the boiler) is a distinguishing feature of “Paducah built” locomotives of the I.C.R.R.
— Excerpted from commentary by Chuck Haacker on Flickr
“Mikado” (aka “Mike”) is the name generally assigned to steam locomotives of the 2–8–2 wheel arrangement. […] These locomotives were of the three foot six inch gauge, and were constructed for Nihon Tetsudo (Japan Railways), a private railway at the time. — steamlocomotive.com
There was only the engine, tender, railway post office car (RPO), and a red caboose. Generative fill has transformed the road into a grassy, rocky berm. The floodwall is gone, the tracks extended, and turgid clouds that could be smoke substitute for a blank sky. The illusion of a longer train is created by cropping through the caboose, which implies there are more cars behind it. I’ve also cleaned up some of the weathering, darkened the classic green of the RPO, and modified the caboose to look like any freight car.
Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Area
Horicon Marsh is about 32,000 acres in size, consisting mostly of open water and cattail marsh. The southern one-third (about 11,000 acres) is owned by the state of Wisconsin and is controlled by the Department of Natural Resources. This is called the Horicon Marsh Wildlife Area or the state area. The northern two-thirds (about 21,000 acres) is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and is known as the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge or federal refuge. Together, as one marsh, it is one of the largest freshwater marshes in the United States. — DNR Wisconsin.gov
Horicon, Wisconsin: Woolly Mammoth and Hunter.
Welded from miles of rusty rebar, a prehistoric hunter is about to launch his spear at a Woolly Mammoth.
Thag, here, is an Upper Paleolithic hunter trying to bring home some mammoth meat to munch. Curly thee Mammut is giving Thag some serious stink eye. No one knows how this particular story ended (my money is on Curly), but these two life-size rusty rebar figures dominate the edge of the Horicon Marsh parking lot.
I liked my angle over Thag’s shoulder, but all that smooth, modern concrete bugged me, so I extended the flat ground, added a pond, and removed some outbuildings in the far background.
For my next trick, there remains a high probability that I will revisit this addictive topic. Stay tuned.
📸As always, gratitude for looking in. I sincerely appreciate it! Questions in the comments will be answered promptly, so please ask.😊👍
