Really good article. I'm surprised to see AI generated images showing up in toy photography; I'm used to seeing them over in the anime scene, where at least I get the thinking: learning to draw anime characters real good takes a lot of time and effort. But toy photography is such an easy thing to explore and dabble in, and is frankly such a niche subject, it feels weird to try and get clout that way.
Love seeing someone starting up a Flickr group in the year of our Luigi 2023. That site just keeps trucking. Though if I may ask, what made you decide on the 1/18 scale maximum limit? I can kind of understand wanting to keep the 1/6 stuff out, since it's such a different beast, but 1/12 seems to me to mostly "fit" in the same techniques and assumptions. (Ie mostly molded detail, few fabric goods, etc.) Was it just to keep the place from being overtaken by 1/12 Star Wars stuff?
Thanks for reading! It is weird to try and mine clout from toy photography. Just mine it in the AI art communities where people are looking for that kind of content.
About 1:12, I confess I don't really know that much about scales but from my cursory search, 1:12 includes a lot of action figures which is not the vibe we're going for.
Now looking deeper, this scale includes dollhouses which you're right, works with what we are looking for. But no, we don't want action figures and personally, I don't want Star Wars stuff 😂
Thank you for the article. I certainly come more from the building than from the photography side of the LEGO hobby (although I do tend to enjoy the image-oriented parts of the process more and more lately), but I find this trend very concerning (as I do the general trend of employing AI any- and everywhere possible).
But what really trips me up is the doubling down that you mention, too. I could understand people just not paying attention to the hashtags they use. I do pay attention and I don't like people just throwing random words at a wall, but at least I could scratch that up as laziness or carelessness, it's "just Instagram" afterall. But when I then see people react to the "nice photo" comments nonchalantly or even, and I've seen that too, actually answering questions about the process as if it were a real photo, that is 100% dishonesty. And in fact, it messed me up to question my own assessment of the picture as being 99% sure it was AI. I thought, well, maybe it is a photo afterall. But no, they were simply lieing! I also wanted to react to those comments saying "it's not a photo", but then I thought it's just a drop in the desert and I can't be the Insta comment police.
In a time where it will become increasingly important to assert our position as humans in every part of society, including our position as human artists who put genuine consideration into their art, it is important to counter the watering down of terms and distinctions, not exacerbate it with such disingenuity.
Having recently shared a few AI generated images, the first thing I did when I saw your post on IG was to check my hashtags - and glad to find out I haven't used any photography hashtags on them. The one exception is on my blog post hashtags, and only because I talk about photography in the article as well as AI generated images.
I have stopped looking for followers and/or engagement a while ago and accepted I'm doing this for myself. I don't even take proper pictures anymore, but because I used to, I consider myself a very amateur photographer. Even though I didn't notice photography hashtags on AI generated images, I would probably be annoyed by people calling them photographs if I did.
Like you said, generating AI images is a very quick way of... well, generating images. Having spent a few hours on Bing, I have over 100 images I love. Minifigures that would pass as my sigfig (or my family's) doing daily things. It's satisfactory for someone who can't create those scenes in real life, or take pictures with such good lighting. It's wonderful to create non-existing minifigures, too. But somewhere deep down it hurts, because I know they aren't truly mine, even though they are near perfect. I think that "deep down" was the reason I created a new hashtag for them, saying AI images instead of toy pictures...
Anyway, I don't want to write a whole other article here :) I joined the Flickr group, hopefully it won't slip my mind and I'll be able to "band together" with you and "make cool shit" :)
I'm pro-making things and will leave it up to other people to debate whether it fits their definitions of art.
It's fine to do that as well because art is expression and it's personal.
As I've pointed out, I only have issues with saying one thing is something else. Semantics are important to me. Words matter.
Enjoy your AI image making. If you feel pained by it, I suggest you use that image as reference and try to shoot it with a camera. You can only get better by noticing things and then trying.
Or... let it go and enjoy what you're making with AI as it's own thing.
If I can make a suggestion: AI creators like yourself have the opportunity to educate commenters. I checked your profile after you said you didn't use photo-related hashtags and noticed someone comment "nice photo" even as they declared AI was evil.
It's not a photo. Part of the problem right there.
Oh wow... and I answered him, without even noticing... yes, point taken. I'm going to be more aware of at least the comments on my images and answer accordingly.
Words do matter... but over the years some have become intertwined - or at least that's how it feels for someone whose native tongue isn't English. We take photographs, but we take pictures, too. On the other hand, we draw pictures as well. Image seems to be a more general version, it can be used for both, along with paintings, or digital drawings. Drawings! Another word! But I don't draw anymore, so I don't need to worry about different kinds of that.
Very confusing. Even more so in Turkish, because you can call them all "resim" and get away with it. Still, like I said, I will be more careful from now on. Thanks for that.
Really good article. I'm surprised to see AI generated images showing up in toy photography; I'm used to seeing them over in the anime scene, where at least I get the thinking: learning to draw anime characters real good takes a lot of time and effort. But toy photography is such an easy thing to explore and dabble in, and is frankly such a niche subject, it feels weird to try and get clout that way.
Love seeing someone starting up a Flickr group in the year of our Luigi 2023. That site just keeps trucking. Though if I may ask, what made you decide on the 1/18 scale maximum limit? I can kind of understand wanting to keep the 1/6 stuff out, since it's such a different beast, but 1/12 seems to me to mostly "fit" in the same techniques and assumptions. (Ie mostly molded detail, few fabric goods, etc.) Was it just to keep the place from being overtaken by 1/12 Star Wars stuff?
Thanks for reading! It is weird to try and mine clout from toy photography. Just mine it in the AI art communities where people are looking for that kind of content.
About 1:12, I confess I don't really know that much about scales but from my cursory search, 1:12 includes a lot of action figures which is not the vibe we're going for.
Now looking deeper, this scale includes dollhouses which you're right, works with what we are looking for. But no, we don't want action figures and personally, I don't want Star Wars stuff 😂
Thank you for the article. I certainly come more from the building than from the photography side of the LEGO hobby (although I do tend to enjoy the image-oriented parts of the process more and more lately), but I find this trend very concerning (as I do the general trend of employing AI any- and everywhere possible).
But what really trips me up is the doubling down that you mention, too. I could understand people just not paying attention to the hashtags they use. I do pay attention and I don't like people just throwing random words at a wall, but at least I could scratch that up as laziness or carelessness, it's "just Instagram" afterall. But when I then see people react to the "nice photo" comments nonchalantly or even, and I've seen that too, actually answering questions about the process as if it were a real photo, that is 100% dishonesty. And in fact, it messed me up to question my own assessment of the picture as being 99% sure it was AI. I thought, well, maybe it is a photo afterall. But no, they were simply lieing! I also wanted to react to those comments saying "it's not a photo", but then I thought it's just a drop in the desert and I can't be the Insta comment police.
In a time where it will become increasingly important to assert our position as humans in every part of society, including our position as human artists who put genuine consideration into their art, it is important to counter the watering down of terms and distinctions, not exacerbate it with such disingenuity.
Oh wow, I didn't know people were also going so far as to lie about the process!
Instagrammers are incredible, literally.
I feel you with withholding a correction on others' photos. For me, I don't want to give them any engagement.
I want the creators to just embrace their AI images as such rather than try to make photography lose meaning. I find these people entirely selfish.
I appreciate your comment.
Having recently shared a few AI generated images, the first thing I did when I saw your post on IG was to check my hashtags - and glad to find out I haven't used any photography hashtags on them. The one exception is on my blog post hashtags, and only because I talk about photography in the article as well as AI generated images.
I have stopped looking for followers and/or engagement a while ago and accepted I'm doing this for myself. I don't even take proper pictures anymore, but because I used to, I consider myself a very amateur photographer. Even though I didn't notice photography hashtags on AI generated images, I would probably be annoyed by people calling them photographs if I did.
Like you said, generating AI images is a very quick way of... well, generating images. Having spent a few hours on Bing, I have over 100 images I love. Minifigures that would pass as my sigfig (or my family's) doing daily things. It's satisfactory for someone who can't create those scenes in real life, or take pictures with such good lighting. It's wonderful to create non-existing minifigures, too. But somewhere deep down it hurts, because I know they aren't truly mine, even though they are near perfect. I think that "deep down" was the reason I created a new hashtag for them, saying AI images instead of toy pictures...
Anyway, I don't want to write a whole other article here :) I joined the Flickr group, hopefully it won't slip my mind and I'll be able to "band together" with you and "make cool shit" :)
I'm pro-making things and will leave it up to other people to debate whether it fits their definitions of art.
It's fine to do that as well because art is expression and it's personal.
As I've pointed out, I only have issues with saying one thing is something else. Semantics are important to me. Words matter.
Enjoy your AI image making. If you feel pained by it, I suggest you use that image as reference and try to shoot it with a camera. You can only get better by noticing things and then trying.
Or... let it go and enjoy what you're making with AI as it's own thing.
If I can make a suggestion: AI creators like yourself have the opportunity to educate commenters. I checked your profile after you said you didn't use photo-related hashtags and noticed someone comment "nice photo" even as they declared AI was evil.
It's not a photo. Part of the problem right there.
Oh wow... and I answered him, without even noticing... yes, point taken. I'm going to be more aware of at least the comments on my images and answer accordingly.
Words do matter... but over the years some have become intertwined - or at least that's how it feels for someone whose native tongue isn't English. We take photographs, but we take pictures, too. On the other hand, we draw pictures as well. Image seems to be a more general version, it can be used for both, along with paintings, or digital drawings. Drawings! Another word! But I don't draw anymore, so I don't need to worry about different kinds of that.
Very confusing. Even more so in Turkish, because you can call them all "resim" and get away with it. Still, like I said, I will be more careful from now on. Thanks for that.