{"id":9097,"date":"2026-02-23T18:29:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T18:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/?page_id=9097"},"modified":"2026-03-12T14:12:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T14:12:40","slug":"dead-photographers-speak","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/?page_id=9097","title":{"rendered":"Dead Photographers Speak"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/?page_id=8074\">Return to Theme Table of Contents<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/vjic.org\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Return to VJIC Table of Contents<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>No matter how slow the film,<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen<\/em>. <a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\">[1]<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Minor White<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding: 75% 0 0 0; position: relative;\"><iframe style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" title=\"Essay 6 Intro_EB\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1167490161?badge=0&amp;autopause=0&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>EDWARD BATEMAN<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Dead Photographers Speak<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00a9 EDWARD BATEMAN &amp; ROBERT HIRSCH, 2026<\/p>\n<p>In an age when photographers no longer need light or cameras, and when computers using the language of prompts can produce convincing images, the question is no longer \u201cWhat is photography?\u201d but rather, \u201cWho still speaks through it?\u201d The answer, it turns out, includes the dead. <a href=\"#_edn2\" name=\"_ednref2\">[2]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The long arc of photography, with its two centuries of alchemy, anticipation, evidence, dreaming, distortion, propaganda, and prayer has now met its algorithmic doppelganger. AI doesn\u2019t just generate images; it resurrects styles, mimics intentions, even simulates the voice behind the lens. It has become our time machine, our puppet theater, our oracle. And like all oracles, its answers are frequently cryptic.<\/p>\n<p>We have not invented the idea of talking to the dead; we only updated the method. In the spirit of s\u00e9ance, speculation, and creative heresy, we have reached beyond the curtain. Our use of AI technology is perhaps not unlike Thomas Edison\u2019s proposed invention of a spirit phone. <a href=\"#_edn3\" name=\"_ednref3\">[3]<\/a> We asked a sampling of departed photographers what they make of this perplexing\u00a0 moment in photography\u2019s history. Some answered with grace. Anne Brigman simply told us: \u201cIf the machine wants to follow me, let it climb the mountain barefoot.\u201d Fred Holland Day said: \u201cIt merely mimics imagination.\u201d Garry Winogrand responded with unprintable anger. Others merely refused to answer.<\/p>\n<p>We thank those who spoke. After all, not everyone rests in peace.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9100\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.1-White-Minor-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"491\" height=\"625\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.1-White-Minor-.jpg 491w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.1-White-Minor--236x300.jpg 236w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.1-White-Minor--118x150.jpg 118w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 491px) 100vw, 491px\" \/>Figure 6.1 \u00a9 Minor White. <em>Empty Head,<\/em> 1962. 9 1\/4 x 7 1\/4 inches. Gelatin silver print.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Julia Marget Cameron (1815 \u2013 1879)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>You are known for emotive, soft-focus portraits and allegorical tableaux, which emphasizes beauty, divinity, truth, and the moral dimension of the photographic act<\/strong>.<strong> What are your thoughts regarding this \u201cnew photography\u201d that can conjure images without light, subject, or soul?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Indeed, I have been watching. To make an image without light, without subject and without soul? That is not photography, rather it is the shadow of a dream, cast by nobody. My lens sought the <em>presence<\/em> of the sitter, the pulsating of the eternal within the mortal face. I welcomed blur, not as failure, but as revelation of the divine; for only in imperfection is there evidence of grace. Through cracks, dust, and even my fingerprints, my photographs revealed the eternal in the face of the living. Beware of an invention that leaves the dust behind. Photographs that do not elicit sensations are but an empty veil.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9101\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.2-Cameron_HershelFeynman-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"495\" height=\"625\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.2-Cameron_HershelFeynman-.jpg 495w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.2-Cameron_HershelFeynman--238x300.jpg 238w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.2-Cameron_HershelFeynman--119x150.jpg 119w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 495px) 100vw, 495px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Figure 6.2 Julia Marget Cameron (AI). <em>Sir John Hershel and Richard Feynman<\/em>, 2026. Dimensions vary. AI-generated digital image (text-to-image), created using OpenAI image model (DALL\u00b7E) and Photoshop, prompt and direction by Robert Hirsch &amp; Edward Bateman.<\/p>\n<p><strong>William Mumler (1832\u20131884)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Your name is associated with spirit photography. While you were acquitted at your fraud trial, most believe that you used photographic trickery to deceive people with your spirit images. AI can create images with disembodied content. What is your perspective now?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ah\u2026 How fitting that I should be summoned in this particular moment. The boundary between the visible and the invisible has once again grown porous as people still reach for images to hold what cannot be touched. You say \u201ctrickery,\u201d and perhaps that\u2019s fair. But, let me remind you: I offered people a glimpse of what they <em>desperately wished<\/em> to see. Grief needs a form and I gave it one. They said I tricked the camera, but the camera is a trickster by nature. It always withholds as much as it shows. I merely guided what was already latent. What difference is there between my glass plate and your generative prompt? In both, the subject may be absent, but the desire is very real. The question remains: do people believe because they are fooled, or because they want to believe? In my day, the image of a departed loved one in the background could heal or reopen a wound. So, I say: ghosts never needed cameras, only someone willing to look.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9102\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.3-Mumler_LincolnTrump-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"417\" height=\"625\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.3-Mumler_LincolnTrump-.jpg 417w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.3-Mumler_LincolnTrump--200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.3-Mumler_LincolnTrump--100x150.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 417px) 100vw, 417px\" \/><\/strong>Figure 6.3 William Mumler (AI). <em>Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump<\/em>, 2026. Dimensions vary. AI-generated digital image (text-to-image), created with OpenAI image model (DALL\u00b7E), prompt and direction by Robert Hirsch &amp; Edward Bateman, 2026.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Alfred Stieglitz (1864 \u2013 1946)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>You did much to advance photography in America as a fine art. Even your own definition of photography changed, from Photo-Succession to your modernistic <em>Equivalents<\/em>. How might AI change photography?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Change is inevitable. I saw many changes pass through my galleries; some revolutionary, but that always passed. What mattered always was <em>expression.<\/em> A photograph, whether of Georgia (O\u2019Keefe\u2019s) hands or of clouds, had to speak from one\u2019s inner life outward. That was the point, not mere record, but discovering revelation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>So now you ask me to consider AI. It troubles me, not because it is synthetic, but because it is so often shallow<em>.<\/em> Accommodating, dazzling, fast, and slick, yes. But what does it demand of its maker? Where is the discipline? Where is the struggle to see distinctly? The silent waiting before pressing the shutter at the precise moment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Still, I would not dismiss it. I have fought too many battles for photography to simply become a reactionary. If someone finds a way through AI to make something true, something felt<em>,<\/em> then let them. However, if it becomes merely illustration, decoration, ephemera, then it will not last. Art does not arise from convenience. It arises from the necessary struggle of the maker.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9103\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.4-OKeefe_Stieglitz-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"625\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.4-OKeefe_Stieglitz-.jpg 500w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.4-OKeefe_Stieglitz--240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.4-OKeefe_Stieglitz--120x150.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/>Figure 6.4 Geogia O\u2019Keefe (AI). <em>Alfred Stieglitz and New York Skyline<\/em>, 2026. Dimensions vary.\u00a0 Photoshop-generated digital image, with additional modification using OpenAI image model (DALL\u00b7E), prompt and direction by Edward Bateman, &amp; Robert Hirsch, 2026.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Weegee (Usher\/Ascher Fellig) 1899\u20141968<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>You were the (self-proclaimed) World\u2019s Greatest Photographer whose journalistic images were collected by the MoMA. Would you use AI today?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d still be the world\u2019s greatest photographer, with a camera or a computer. It don\u2019t matter cuz I got the eye. Might as well make a few bucks while waiting for the next murder.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9104\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.5-Weegee_Gangland-slaying-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"444\" height=\"625\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.5-Weegee_Gangland-slaying-.jpg 444w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.5-Weegee_Gangland-slaying--213x300.jpg 213w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.5-Weegee_Gangland-slaying--107x150.jpg 107w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 444px) 100vw, 444px\" \/>Figure 6.5 Weegee (AI). <em>Gangland Slaying on 42<sup>nd<\/sup> Street<\/em>, <em>New York<\/em>, 2026. Dimensions vary. AI-generated digital image (text-to-image), created using OpenAI image model (DALL\u00b7E) and Photoshop, prompt and direction by Robert Hirsch &amp; Edward Bateman.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Man Ray\/Emmanuel Radnitzky (1890 \u2013 1976)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Your rayographs demonstrate how you experimented with photography. What do you think about using AI to make photographs? Also, have you talked with Marcel Duchamp about AI? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\">\u00a0<\/span>Ah, finally, someone asks the right question! You must understand, I never thought of myself as just a photographer. The camera was a tool, but so were shadows, glass, heat, and accidents. AI? Why not? It\u2019s simply another way to challenge assumptions, upset habits, and flirt with surprise. One should never pass up an opportunity for flirting! I made rayographs by placing objects directly on photographic paper and letting light perform a little magic. Is AI so different? You feed it fragments: words, references, bits of memory and it conjures up something unexpected. That\u2019s not far from surrealism, my dear. It\u2019s just that the darkroom is now inside the machine. People still expect photographs must come from cameras. I never cared for that notion. What matters is the spark. A flash in the brain, not from a bulb. If a tool lets you get that faster, use it. But don\u2019t confuse surprise with art.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve spoken with Marcel, of course. He thinks it\u2019s a bore. But he said that about most things until he quietly stole them. He claims he\u2019s teaching AI to make a piece so boring it disappears entirely. \u201cPure absence,\u201d he says. Then he laughed. So yes, we\u2019re working on something. But we\u2019ll probably just throw it away when we\u2019re done.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9105\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.6-Man-Ray_MR-Marcel-Duchamp-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"417\" height=\"625\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.6-Man-Ray_MR-Marcel-Duchamp-.jpg 417w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.6-Man-Ray_MR-Marcel-Duchamp--200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.6-Man-Ray_MR-Marcel-Duchamp--100x150.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 417px) 100vw, 417px\" \/>Figure 6.6 Man Ray (AI). <em>Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp<\/em>, 2026. Dimensions vary. AI-generated digital image (text-to-image), created using OpenAI image model (DALL\u00b7E), prompt and direction by Robert Hirsch &amp; Edward Bateman.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Diane Arbus (1923 \u2013 1971)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Your photographs of marginalized people put you decades ahead of the social curve. Does AI belong on that photo curve?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Let me mix one of my own quotes up with something that Garry (Winogrand) said: \u201cI photograph to see what my fear looks like.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn4\" name=\"_ednref4\">[4]<\/a> Is that a mixed metaphor? I photographed what people tried not to see. AI makes things we want to see. There\u2019s a difference. With AI, I worry we\u2019re building images without the risk of looking. No fear, no vulnerability, no permission.\u00a0 If it can make you feel like you\u2019re looking too closely, like you\u2019re seeing something not meant to be seen, then maybe it\u2019s getting close. But I\u2019m not sure it wants to. It would have to learn how to stare first.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lee Miller (1907 \u2013 1977)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>You were a surrealist, war correspondent, and photographic innovator, who navigated modernism, myth, propaganda, and trauma. You photographed the German concentration camps at Dachau and Buchenwald, what guided your hand: art, duty, or something bleaker?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>None of those words feel quite right on their own. I made photographs at Dachau and Buchenwald to keep from screaming. The camera was my witness, my shield, my scalpel, and my confession. You don\u2019t make art in a place like that, you make evidence. Every frame was a refusal to let the world forget. I wasn\u2019t searching for beauty; I was recording the failure of civilization in the language it couldn\u2019t deny: the image. I photographed out of fury at what was in front of me. I refused to look away, and it broke me. What angers me now is that images can be made without ever being punched in the gut by what you see. If there\u2019s no slap in the making, there\u2019s no weight in the seeing. And that makes forgetting way too easy. If a machine can honestly do that, then maybe they will earn the right to make images.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ansel Adams (1902 \u2013 1984)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>You knew that digital photography was in development and expressed an excitement about it. We now have AI, which some might consider the ultimate \u201cpre-visualization\u201d tool. What do you think? What has your friend Edward Weston said to you about AI?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Well, let\u2019s not confuse pre-visualization with prediction. People often thought it meant planning every detail, but what I truly meant was having a clear intent in being able to visualize the final print as you stood before the scene. It was never about rigidity, but about intention and mastery. I stood before a mountain and knew how I wanted it to feel as a print. Not just what it looked like, but what it could <em>become<\/em> in the darkroom. The Zone System was never intended to be a constraint, but a language for rendering vision into black-and-white tonality.<a href=\"#_edn5\" name=\"_ednref5\">[5]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>AI is astonishing as it flips the process inside out, but that\u2019s not pre-visualization. There is no light, no waiting for the clouds to open and no negative. It doesn\u2019t ask you to photographically understand a place, just to describe it. Still, if it helps someone express something true<em>,<\/em> then who am I to scoff? However, if it\u2019s only spectacle without heart\u2026 well, then it belongs in the circus and not in a cathedral.<\/p>\n<p>Edward [Weston] finds it amusing and says it\u2019s like expecting a typewriter to fall in love with its words. He\u2019s not wrong. But, if someone uses AI to deepen seeing, well, that could be something. But if we lose the patience to see<em>,<\/em> returning to the same rock over and over waiting for the right light, then we have lost the very essence of <em>the thing itself<\/em>. <a href=\"#_edn6\" name=\"_ednref6\">[6]<\/a> And no machine, no matter how clever, can give that back. Although Minor [White] always used to say: \u201cOne should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are.\u201d <a href=\"#_edn7\" name=\"_ednref7\">[7]<\/a> You should ask him about that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Andy Warhol (1928 \u2013 1987)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Andy, if AI can make art, copy your style, and even talk like you, does that mean the machine has finally become you, or that you were already a kind of machine all along?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0<\/em>I don\u2019t care about the words. There are too many words. I just like looking at the pictures.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9118\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-02-23-at-22.43.49.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"625\" height=\"625\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-02-23-at-22.43.49.jpeg 625w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-02-23-at-22.43.49-300x300.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-02-23-at-22.43.49-150x150.jpeg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px\" \/>Figure 6.7 Warhol (AI). <em>The Factory, <\/em>2026<em>. <\/em>Dimensions vary. AI-generated digital image (text-to-image), prompt and direction by Kenneth Collins<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The computer monitor reads: \u201cPROMPT&gt; A soup can in the style of Campbell\u2019s, but make it look like a screenprint featuring bold, flat areas of color and high contrast.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robert Mapplethorpe (1946 \u2013 1989)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Your provocative photographs expressed beauty, desire, and domination<\/strong>.<strong> What do you think now that AI has automated your themes?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Beauty always has a dangerous side. People pretend it\u2019s innocent, but it isn\u2019t. It seduces, it penetrates, it demands dominance and surrender. When I photographed a body, I wasn\u2019t documenting it, I was sculpting with light to reveal what I wanted to be seen and what I wanted to stay hidden. That tension, between disclosure and resistance, is what made it erotic and freaked people out.<\/p>\n<p>AI can fake the surfaces I loved: skin like marble, poses balanced on the edge of control. But there is no tension or that prick of nervous sweat. No ache of wanting something dangerous or the thrill of making beauty obey. My work was never just about form; it was about the power beneath it\u2026 sex, ritual, pride, and shame. Boredom is the death of desire. With AI, there\u2019s no real heat in the room.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gordon Parks (1912 \u2013 2006)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Y<em>ou used the camera to give dignity to people whom America marginalized. Now that AI has put a gaping hole in photographic veracity, how can one make meaningful images in a world where seeing no longer guarantees believing?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My camera was a weapon against injustice, poverty, racism, and silence. What mattered was that the people I photographed were <em>real<\/em> and that I saw them fully. If you take away the substance behind the image, you risk losing the humanity too.<\/p>\n<p>Now that you\u2019ve got machines that can mimic reality, people don\u2019t know what to believe. That\u2019s dangerous. But, it also means the artist has to do more than just depict. They have to stand for something bigger than themselves. An image alone won\u2019t cut it. What matters more than ever is intention and integrity. You don\u2019t earn trust with pixels. You earn it by caring. By standing up for something. And by choosing to show what\u2019s real even when it\u2019s not what people want to see.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why the image still matters. You must <em>deeply mean it<\/em>. When I photographed Ella Watson holding that broom and mop in front of the American flag, I wasn\u2019t inventing her struggle, I was standing there with her. A machine can copy my style, but it can\u2019t understand what it meant to grow up hungry, to ride the back of the bus, to walk into <em>Life<\/em> magazine knowing I was the only Black man in the room with a camera. That understanding shaped every frame I ever made.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robert Frank (1924 \u2013 2019)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Robert, much of your work, especially <em>The Americans<\/em>, <a href=\"#_edn8\" name=\"_ednref8\">[8]<\/a> was driven by a restless, questioning eye. Can AI see any subject with such discernment?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t believe a machine can <em>look<\/em> and it can\u2019t move around and see. <em>The Americans<\/em> came from driving across the US, feeling its weight, watching lives unfold, often in quiet, overlooked corners. In <em>The Americans<\/em>, I was responding to what <em>was<\/em>, the difference between the Great American Myth and the reality. Harsh or not, that didn\u2019t matter. AI invents out of who-knows-what, but it\u2019s all surface: No grain, no blur, and nothing raw. That stuff only matters to someone who cares.<\/p>\n<p>The camera was my conscience. I exposed my own discomfort, loneliness, sadness, and love; something a machine is blind to. AI images don\u2019t belong to this world, so what\u2019s the point? Where\u2019s the humanity? When a country can no longer stand to look at itself, maybe it\u2019s dead and books like <em>The Americans<\/em> will cease to exist.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9107\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.8-Frank-Robert-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"417\" height=\"625\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.8-Frank-Robert-.jpg 417w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.8-Frank-Robert--200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.8-Frank-Robert--100x150.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 417px) 100vw, 417px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Figure 6.8 Robert Frank (AI) <em>Main Street<\/em>, <em>USA,<\/em> 2026<em>.<\/em> Dimensions vary. AI-generated digital image (text-to-image), created using OpenAI image model (DALL\u00b7E) and Photoshop, prompt and direction by Robert Hirsch &amp; Edward Bateman.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jerry Uelsmann (1934 \u2013 2022)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Your surreal darkroom creations brought back the combination printing of Oscar Rejlander and Henry Robinson. You tried an early version of Photoshop, but returned to your darkroom. As a former teacher, what would you suggest for today\u2019s young photographers regarding AI?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ah, thank you for asking. I\u2019ve always believed the darkroom was a place for discovery, not just execution. It was never about <em>what was there<\/em>\u2014but what <em>could be.<\/em> So when Photoshop came along I gave it a spin. However, I didn\u2019t fall in love with it. Not because it was digital, but because it answered too quickly. I liked <em>not knowing<\/em> how a print would turn out. That was where the poetry lived.<\/p>\n<p>Whether you\u2019re dodging and burning under an enlarger or prompting a machine, what matters is the <em>intention<\/em>, the <em>curiosity<\/em>, the willingness to follow an idea somewhere surprising and maybe a little uncomfortable. If AI helps you find something you didn\u2019t expect\u2014great. But if you\u2019re just making glib illusions with no soul behind them, you\u2019re not making art. You\u2019re making decorations. And remember: accidents are still sacred. Whatever the process, leave room for the image to become smarter than you.<\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-9108 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.9-Uelsmann--248x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"248\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.9-Uelsmann--248x300.jpg 248w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.9-Uelsmann--124x150.jpg 124w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.9-Uelsmann-.jpg 517w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 248px) 100vw, 248px\" \/><\/td>\n<td><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-9109\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.10-Uelsmann-AI--300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.10-Uelsmann-AI--300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.10-Uelsmann-AI--150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.10-Uelsmann-AI-.jpg 625w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Figure 6.9 \u00a9 Jerry Uelsmann, <em>Untitled,<\/em> 2002. 10 1\/4 x 12 1\/4 inches. Gelatin silver print.<\/p>\n<p>Figure 6.10 Jerry Uelsmann (AI), <em>Untitled<\/em>. Dimensions vary. AI-generated digital image (text-to-image), created using OpenAI image model (DALL\u00b7E), prompt and direction by Edward Bateman &amp; Robert Hirsch.<\/p>\n<p>In light of his conceptual linkage between the photograph and death, we felt it appropriate to conclude with a response from the noted literary theorist, semiotician, and essayist, Roland Barthes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Roland Barthes (1915 \u2013 1980)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Your respect for photography is revealed in <em>Camera Lucida<\/em> (1980). The majority of the photographs you included were historical or documentary opposed to fine art. Does AI make your concept of \u201cstudium\u201d <a href=\"#_edn9\" name=\"_ednref9\">[9]<\/a> irrelevant or just different? Can an AI image still have a \u201cpunctum\u201d <a href=\"#_edn10\" name=\"_ednref10\">[10]<\/a> ? Does AI change the relationship between a photograph and death?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Camera Lucida<\/em> was for me as much a meditation on mourning the passing of my mother as it was about photography. AI cannot mourn. Its images do not witness. They arrive with no origin, a nonentity that lacks emotional connection. And so I find myself disoriented, like a ghost trying to read its own obituary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>In photography, the <em>studium<\/em> drew strength from its shared connection to culture, history, and politics. In AI, this collapses<em>.<\/em> It gestures toward meaning, but cannot hold it. Yet even so, the illusion of <em>studium<\/em> may remain, because there are always things to observe with our rational minds. So perhaps the <em>studium<\/em> is not irrelevant, but spectral. It flickers. That, I must admit, is very human.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>I believe <em>punctum<\/em> can occasionally survive. An AI image that personally pierces an individual is able to tap into something that already aches inside the viewer. It is not the wound of what was<em>,<\/em> but perhaps the wound of what could never be<em>.<\/em> It touches what hurts, but not what happened<em>.<\/em> A face that doesn\u2019t exist can still look like your mother before she died. Maybe that is enough?<\/p>\n<p>But this is not photography\u2019s death, it is photography\u2019s forgetting. The photograph, for me, was aligned with death: it says this has been, and therefore this is gone. AI removes that sequence of natural events. It shows us things that never were and therefore never die. The image is born without pain. It offers us a world without decay or memory. Perhaps the opposite of mourning. I am left to wonder\u2026 if there is no death, is there still desire?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Regardless of the camera, process, or approach, each of these photographers made images that were unmistakably their own: not because of the tools, but because of their human experiences behind them. Changes in art are rarely spontaneous, but are driven by shifts in culture and technology. <a href=\"#_edn11\" name=\"_ednref11\">[11]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>AI is not the death of photography any more than the camera was the death of painting. It is the latest force to reshape how images are made, circulated, and believed. <a href=\"#_edn12\" name=\"_ednref12\">[12]<\/a> As psychologist Dan Gilbert explains, humans are notoriously bad at predicting how change will affect us. We tend to suffer from what he calls <em>impact bias<\/em>: overestimating the long-term consequences of new events, especially disruptive ones. <a href=\"#_edn13\" name=\"_ednref13\">[13]<\/a> Perhaps that\u2019s why so many worry that AI will hollow out photography, strip it of meaning, and\/or make human hands irrelevant. Yet photography adapted, and meaning shifted away from tools toward intention, context, and responsibility. But meaning has never lived in the tool. It lives in the maker\u2019s struggle, curiosity, restraint, and willingness to be accountable for what an image does in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Shakespeare gives us a prototype for this moment. In <em>The Tempest<\/em>, Ariel is a dazzling, invisible force that can stage storms, scatter bodies, whisper in ears, and persuade anyone of anything\u2014depending on who holds the book of spells. AI now occupies a similar position in photography: it can summon style, simulate presence, even ventriloquize the dead, while tempting us to outsource responsibility to the machine. The real question is not whether the spirit is \u201creal,\u201d but who is doing the summoning, to what ends, and who answers when the illusion persuades.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9110\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.11-Ariel-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"417\" height=\"625\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.11-Ariel-.jpg 417w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.11-Ariel--200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6.11-Ariel--100x150.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 417px) 100vw, 417px\" \/>Figure 6.11 <em>Ariel<\/em> (after William Shakespeare\u2019s, <em>The Tempest<\/em>). Dimensions vary. AI-generated digital image (text-to-image), created using OpenAI image model (DALL\u00b7E), prompt and direction by Robert Hirsch &amp; Edward Bateman, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Barthes observed that this is not photography\u2019s death but photography\u2019s forgetting of images \u201cborn without pain,\u201d untethered from <em>this-has-been<\/em>, and therefore too easy to consume without consequence. Technologies change; human nature does not. It can manufacture persuasion without the burden of seeing, simulate voice without the weight of witness.<\/p>\n<p>What unites these photographers across generations, and beyond death, is authorship: a commitment to look clearly, to risk something, to earn the image, and to answer for it. The soul of photography cannot be conjured. It must be claimed.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding: 75.16% 0 0 0; position: relative;\"><iframe style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" title=\"Video 6 video Conclusion_RH\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1167490109?badge=0&amp;autopause=0&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>ROBERT HIRSCH<br \/>\nTo contact the authors got to their websites<br \/>\nROBERT HIRSCH. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lightresearch.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=http:\/\/www.lightresearch.net\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1772123151669000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1E02T2q17cFPGtxDantTbJ\">www.lightresearch.net<\/a><br \/>\nEDWARD BATEMAN <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ebateman.com\">http:\/\/www.ebateman.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Endnotes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref1\" name=\"_edn1\">[1]<\/a> Minor White, <em>Mirrors, Messages, Manifestations <\/em>(New York: Aperture, 1969), 22.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref2\" name=\"_edn2\">[2]<\/a> As this article points out, photography\u2019s ability to manipulate reality is not a new concern. See: Louis Anslow, \u201cAmerica tried to ban fake photos in 1912,\u201d <em>Freethink<\/em>, June 4, 2025, www.freethink.com\/the-digital-frontier\/fake-photo-ban-1912<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref3\" name=\"_edn3\">[3]<\/a> Edison stated: \u201cI have been at work for some time, building an apparatus to see if it is possible for personalities which have left this earth to communicate with us\u2026\u201d Several sources discuss his interest in building a so\u2011called <em>spirit phone<\/em> that would pick up \u201cvoices of the dead\u201d or subtle \u201cetheric\u201d influences. Today\u2019s ghost hunters continue in this tradition of using technology through Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) which claims that ghostly voices can be heard in static. See: Austin C. Lescarboura, \u201cEdison\u2019s Views on Life and Death: An Interview with the Famous Inventor Regarding His Attempt to Communicate with the Next World,\u201d <em>Scientific American<\/em> 123, no. 18 (October 30, 1920): 446, 458\u201360, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/scientificamerican10301920-446<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref4\" name=\"_edn4\">[4]<\/a> Garry Winogrand stated: <em>\u201cI photograph to see what something looks like photographed,\u201d<\/em> quoted in John Szarkowski, <em>Winogrand: Figments from the Real World<\/em> (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1988), 8.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref5\" name=\"_edn5\">[5]<\/a> Zone System, co-developed by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer, is a photographic method that divides tonal values from black to white into a calibrated scale, allowing photographers to pre-visualize and precisely control exposure and development so that the final print matches their intended tonal relationships.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref6\" name=\"_edn6\">[6]<\/a> In Weston-and-Adams terms, \u201cthe thing itself\u201d is the subject\u2019s essential form made visibly irrefutable, through sharp seeing and disciplined craft, so the photograph reads as a direct encounter rather than a Pictorialist effect.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref7\" name=\"_edn7\">[7]<\/a> Minor White, \u201cEquivalence: The Perennial Trend,\u201d <em>Aperture<\/em>, no. 1 (1952): 8\u20139.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref8\" name=\"_edn8\">[8]<\/a> Robert Frank\u2019s <em>The Americans<\/em> was first published in 1958 (in France, as <em>Les Am\u00e9ricains<\/em>). The first U.S. edition followed in 1959 (Grove Press, with an introduction by Jack Kerouac).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref9\" name=\"_edn9\">[9]<\/a> Studium is the conscious, rational observation of a photograph. It is what you\u2019re <em>supposed<\/em> to notice in a photograph: its message, subject matter, setting, historical context, style, what it\u2019s \u201cabout.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref10\" name=\"_edn10\">[10]<\/a> Punctum is the individual, unconscious, and non-rational response to a photograph. It is the little thing that <em>gets you<\/em>: the sting of a photograph. A detail that unexpectedly grabs your attention and hits you personally: emotionally, viscerally, weirdly. It might be small, such as a hand, a scuffed shoe, a glance that someone else might not feel it at all.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref11\" name=\"_edn11\">[11]<\/a> For more information see: Ernst Gombrich, \u2018Style\u2019 from <em>International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences <\/em>15 (Macmillan, New York 1968).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref12\" name=\"_edn12\">[12]<\/a> Matt Growcoot, \u201cPhotography Has Always Had its Tricksters,\u201d <em>PetaPixel<\/em>, Feb 10, 2026, https:\/\/petapixel.com\/2026\/02\/10\/photography-has-always-had-its-tricksters-rijksmuseum\/<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref13\" name=\"_edn13\">[13]<\/a> Impact bias explains why we repeatedly believe new technologies will permanently transform our lives in a detrimental way; when, in fact, humans adapt faster than they expect. See: Dan Gilbert, <em>Stumbling on Happiness<\/em> (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), esp. chap. 10, \u201cThe Forecasting Error.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Return to Theme Table of Contents Return to VJIC Table of Contents No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen. 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