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Photography, AI, and the Art of Letting Go
On Technology’s Shifts
You know something has radically changed when almost everything you’ve done is now obsolete.
Before digital photography transformed our daily lives, my writing and ideas on photography revolved around silver salt grains, darkrooms, taking photographs without immediately seeing the result, and those long hours in the lab searching for the perfect, subtle impression.
Those ideas became obsolete when high‑resolution digital cameras — and later, even the iPhone — entered our photographic lives. For example, I once believed that the resolution produced by millions of silver salt grains in a single square inch of a negative could never be easily matched by digital sensors. Yet, for a variety of reasons, digital photography today surpasses even the finest analog work.
No more silver salt grains, negatives, darkrooms, or waiting for film development.
The same shift is happening now with the arrival of AI. Many long‑held assumptions about writing, reading, coding, image generation, and design are changing rapidly.
Whenever I revisit my journals or notes on these and other topics, I feel the urge to update them — because AI has already reshaped them.
You know something has radically changed when almost everything you’ve done is now obsolete.
