Let’s talk about fun today. Photography is fun. So, how do we relate it to AI? Hmm. Read on. Recently 1839 Awards, conducted a competition for photographers. Well, one particular photo category was for AI images.

1839 Awards?

1839 was the year, when a new medium of visual representation was announced to the world: photography. Soon, everyone was awed by its magic. Each photograph that we see brings perspectives and is a door to the past.

Named after the birth year of photography, 1839Awards, celebrates the beautiful artistic skills of the photographers as they tell stories through their cameras. The panel of judges has more than 30+ years of combined experience and includes members from various renowned organizations such as The New York Times, Getty Images, Phillips, Maddox Gallery etc. There’s jury award and there’s people vote award for multiple categories. First the judges decide the winner and then the jury nominates entries for voting where the public can decide who they think should win. Also, this time they had a designated category for AI.

What happened?

Miles Astray (Pen name) won the award in the AI category. Not one, but he won both – the Jury award and the People’s Vote Award. Excellent, isn’t it? What was the picture about? His photo – ‘F L A M I N G O N E‘ was a pink flamingo, headless – not actually headless, but its head was not visible, and it looked like a pink ball with thin legs on a serene background. After being declared the winner, Miles Astray shared something with the organizers and soon he was disqualified.

Oh! Why? What did he say?

Your coffee is getting cold. Take a sip… Okay.

So, Astray, told the jury that the photo actually used was, wait for it, here’s the twist… not AI but human effort. That’s right. This surreal picture was taken after he decided to capture the flamingos by walking to Aruba beach, as early as 5 am, before the crowd gets there. Remember, how in this era of AI, the digital media is threatened with artificial content winning over the actual human creativity. Astray did this for all the creators out there, journalists, artists, graphic designers, you and me to prove a point – Human content is still relevant. So, when the opposites usually happen with AI content winning competitions, this time a real content won the AI award.

How did the jury react?

Astray was worried about the “ethical” concerns. Technically he misled them. Strange but true if you go by the rules – it is invalid. For this reason, the jury decided to disqualify the photo and give the award to participants who actually put in efforts as per the category. Astray revealed that even then, the Co-founder and the Director, Lily Fierman, appreciated the message by saying , “We hope this will bring awareness (and a message of hope) to many photographers worried about AI”. Even Fierman wins our hearts.

Also, one side note: if you are thinking generating an image from AI is easy, try using one. It is not easy as it sounds. Even if the LLM is good, the way you use the prompt and the clarity in your communication would decide the result.