The bigger picture
A child's outlook
Dad, a big bass, and little me.
The sea has been calling ever since I was a small kid. For while I grew up in leafy, land-locked Surrey, my Dad was a keen sea angler, so alongside our every school holiday, he'd head to the Kent or Sussex coast at every opportunity. And I always pestered to join him because, after I'd helped digging bait - big, juicy Lugworms that stained your fingers lime green when you picked them up, and impressively voided their guts in a bright orange squirt when you threw them down! - I could go and play in the sea. Something I loved more than anything.
Dad was relaxed about this, but Mum had a phobia of water and my 100 yard Breast Stroke certificate from Junior school did not allay fears of her darling youngest drowning. Therefore, even though I could swim like a fish, she made Dad promise to always go in with me. Which ate into his fishing time and limited my play time. So we devised a plan. I would - in Dad's words - "Join a grown up's swimming club and learn to swim properly. Mum can't argue with that..."
Thereafter, every Tuesday and Thursday evening, and very early on a Saturday morning, Dad took me training at the Gorringe Swordfish Swimming Club in Wimbledon.
Aged 11, I came home brandishing a certificate proclaiming I'd swam a mile. A declaration of independence, ensuring I was now free to play in the waves any time I wished.
With our mission accomplished, we settled into the new arrangement. But Dad continued in nurturing my watery affinity by coming home with goggles, fins, or on one memorable occasion, a full face mask with integrated snorkel... Surely I was Jacques Cousteau!
While it was the murky English Channel and I could barely see my hand in front of the mask's glass, I was in and out of the sea all weekend. Staying in until my teeth chattered and lips turned bright blue. Then I'd dry off and help out with baiting the nightlines (at low tide), or picking shrimps from the big net Dad pushed through the surfline (on a lowering tide), or guarding the rods at all hours of the day and night, waiting for a bite with the tide on the rise.
Such experiences made me aware of the sea's many moods and seasonal changes from different perspectives, alongside witnessing many remarkable events. High summer Mackerel runs where the bay's surface erupted with iridescent shoals on the hunt for fry. I'd stand beside Dad in the surf, watching on in awe as he launched a 6oz lead to the horizon with his trusty beach caster. The drum of his multiplier reel would whine as it spooled out yards of hissing line. Then, with a solid 'clunk', he'd engage the retrieve gear and begin winding in a set of brightly coloured feathers through the silvered masses. His powerful rod would bend double and the reel's clutch would scream when he hooked into a 'full house'. Straining and heaving as he hauled the franticly fighting fish through the crashing surf, his beaming smile told of another delicious supper to come. Once the fish were cleaned and taken up to the fridge, he'd set up a small rod for me. And if I managed to cast beyond the breakwater, then I too would occasionally feel a thrilling jolt as I hooked into the action.
Spring and Autumn marked changes in the atmospherics and colours I witnessed, alongside the fish species we caught. Bass, Whiting, Sole, Plaice and the occasional Dogfish were favourites for the summer table. Yet it was the winter months that were the best. Because the colder water would bring the Cod inshore. Dad would rush in from work on a Friday afternoon. I would be at the door ready. The car would be packed. Mum would hand over a huge beef and onion suet pudding and a 'Pevensey Pud', and with a quick hug and a kiss we were on our way.
TIME WAS OF THE ESSENCE
Two hours later we'd pull up at 202 Coast Road, Pevensey Bay. A tired, fading holiday bungalow Dad kept 'patched-up' for the owner. In so doing, he was allowed year round access. Now there wouldn't be a moment to lose. For Dad would have planned our arrival around the low tide. So after quickly throwing the sleeping bags into the bedrooms, filling and lighting the smelly paraffin heaters - that attempted to take the dank chill out of the musty interior - and put the supper on to steam, we'd don our boots and head out into the darkness to dig bait by torchlight. For time was of the essence!
We would squelch through the smelly mud-flats and out to the sandy tideline. Reading the waves, Dad would judge the best place to start digging. Picking out a big, thick cast (that signified the presence of a large worm below) he'd get to work with his thin-bladed Bait spade. I'd point a powerful torch beam into the excavation as he followed the tale-tale thin green hole down deep into the sand. When it started to level out, he'd begin carefully extracting bigger clumps of sand for me to break up and hopefully reveal our quarry. This could take time, and often we'd be picking worms out of flooding holes and retreating back from the advancing wave sets, to begin all over again higher up the beach.
For the success of the coming night's fishing relied on what we managed to dig. A fishing rig needed at least two hooks to be effective, and Dad fished two rods (plus another one out for me), so that was six worms per cast-out. He would cast the rods every half hour, and fish the rising/peaking tide for up to four hours. That meant, even if the fish weren't biting and the crabs left them alone, for an ideal session he would need at least forty eight lugworms. Add what we'd need for the nightlines, and this made for demanding work for Dad. In deepest winter I can recall how the torch beam picked out the steam pluming off his sweaty bare back as he dug. We were always against the clock and he relied on me to do my bit. It was cold, often wet, and always tiring, but I really enjoyed our bait digging bonding. And when we had finally got enough and Dad announced "That should do us", we'd trudge back up the beach knowing a suppertime treat was in store.
WONDERFUL TIMES
In the evening's inky blackness there'd be very few shoreline lights. Meaning the bright Tilley lamp Dad had put in the conservatory window, made for a welcoming beacon to guide us home. As the rusting Crittal door opened, a deliciously warm aroma would wash over us. Dad would sniff the air like a Bisto kid and cry out "FOOOOOOOOOOD!" We'd kick off our boots, wash the sand and muck from our hands, then sit down to huge steaming helpings of beef and onion suet pudding. Listening to the shipping forecast, in the roaring glow of the Tilley we would tuck in ravenously.
Then came Dad's favourite... a Pevensey Pud. Yet another suet pudding, but this time containing orange, ginger (yuck!) and lashings of treacle! Two courses of suet puddings might sound a tad over the top, but Dad could eat a horse, and his first course barely touched the sides. Also Dad was a crap cook. He freely admitted he could burn water and told a great story of his navy days, when the ship's cook had opened a porthole and thrown the rice pudding Dad had made, into Portland Harbour. "Even the seagulls wouldn't eat it!" he'd laugh "and it came back in and out on the tides for the next four days!" Therefore steaming was the simplest way Mum could ensure her boys would eat well without burning the bungalow to the ground.
After filling our bellies to bursting point, Dad would send me off to do my teeth while he cleared up. The bungalow had a hungry electric meter and we were always on a tight budget. Dad would bark "Put that light out!" like the ARP warden on Dad's Army if I kept one on too long. So a torch was a constant companion. Wind blown, chilly, but fully replete, I'd climb into my sleeping bag fully clothed, excited with anticipation at what was to come. I'd switch off the torch, tuck it under my pillow, close my eyes and sleep would wash over me like a wave.
A few hours later Dad would wake me with a brusk shake "It's time to feed the fish, don't go back to sleep". I'd shake off my bleary slumber, and once my torch was on, Dad would head back to the shore. The outer door would clang shut and the bungalow became dark and silent, all except for the sounds of the weather outside the thin walls. As I blearily pulled on my wellies, I would judge how many jumpers I would need to put on, and if it would be my anorak or my oilskin coat. For I knew if I got it wrong, I would only be out for a short while before I started shivering, or got soaked through, and Dad would - sworn once again to Mum's insistence - send me back to bed.
"SHHHHHHHHHHH!..."
Once ready, I would step out into the deep of the night. Sometimes starry and calm, others clouded and blustery, as soon as I reached the end of the pathway onto the beach, the darkness that enveloped me made the sounds and smells that assaulted my senses so much more vivid. The gusting wind, crashing waves and salty tang in the air welcomed me into a magical world of coastal adventure. Way off in the distance, down on the tideline I would see the Tilley lamp's haloed glow and I would start the long trudge. As I got closer, I'd be able to make out Dad's silhouette as he stood by the rods. When within shouting distance, I'd cheekily bellow "HAVE YOU CAUGHT BREAKFAST?!" and then await the same old reply. A theatrical, remonstrating "SHHHHHH!!"... For Dad liked to feign superstitiousness when fishing. As though a candid response would jinx the session. But I knew the louder and longer the "SHHHHHHH" lasted for, the better he would have fared.
Giggling with anticipation, I'd run to the fish bucket and lift the old red towel he always used as a cover, to see what was underneath. One time, after a particularly long "SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH", I lifted the towel, pointed the torch beam, and six pairs of huge fishy eyes glowed back at me. The big Cod were in! Wonderful times indeed.
The Torrey Canyon breaks apart
I relate these experiences because they made indelible impressions on me. They are engrained in my psyche, and formed the deep love and nurturing attitude I have maintained for nature and the coast ever since. They were all so memorable, but perhaps none more so than the violent channel storms that tore the skies apart with crackling lightning and booming thunder. Especially the one back in February 1967 that wrecked the boats of Pevensey Bay's inshore fishing fleet.
An un-forecasted deep Depression front that swept in late in the evening, saw the high tide advance way beyond its tabled predictions. The exposed wooden craft that hadn't been winched far enough up the pebbled beaches, were swept away and smashed to pieces. I was only six, but I well remember big waves rushing out of the darkness and washing right up to the conservatory doors. And how Dad listened so intently to the shipping forecast warnings while watching the clock and wishing for the tide's turn before the windows were put in.
Luckily it did and the glass remained intact. Yet next morning I can recall the sight that met us as if it were yesterday. For from Norman's Bay to the south, right around to the Martello tower at Langley point to the west, the tideline was awash with splintered wreckage. In my youthful immaturity this presented a fascinating playground, and I payed little heed to the grey-faced fishermen picking over the remnants of their livelihoods.
A DISASTER ON A NATIONAL SCALE
The winter storm had created a localised calamity. However, just a few weeks later there followed a disaster on a national scale. The Torre Canyon supertanker ran onto rocks off the tip of Cornwall, spilling millions of gallons of crude oil into the sea. Once again, to my child's eyes, the news coverage of RAF jets bombing the wreck and setting fire to vast oil slicks using rockets and napalm was thrilling. Yet the naive 'knee-jerk' reactions from the government had serious repercussions. It was reported that only Cornwall's, Normandy's and Guernsey's coasts had been affected, and that major clean-up operations were underway, so all would be well. But the full impact was yet to come.
The following Whitsun holiday, the family returned to Pevensey, where we were met by a truly awful outlook. For now, the wooden wreckage of the trawlers that still littered the tideline, was stranded amongst a sticky black swathe of stinking, scorched tar.
The decision to burn and use 'detergents' to disperse the slicks had backfired badly. Beyond killing any sea life the highly poisonous industrial solvents came in contact with, they worked with the fire to thicken and encrust the liquid oil. Turning it into a tarry flotsam that the waves couldn't break up and leaving the foul, floating mass free to sweep up the English Channel. Due to localised currents, much had been drawn in to make landfall along Pevensey's shores. Creating a horrid sight that became grotesque when up close. Because trapped amongst the foul, black mass were the rotting carcasses of hundreds upon hundreds of seabirds.
Dad, Mum and Pop - my paternal Grandfather - made to clear a section and give us access the sands. So my brother Adrian and I helped in making a towering bonfire that, fuelled by the tar and the tallow from the boat wreckage, burned ferociously. From there on Adrian and I spent the rest of a grisly week dragging and shovelling the gruesome mess onto a pyre that burned day and night. The skin of our hands and arms was rubbed raw and the acrid smell of Swarfega that Mum used to clean us up each evening haunts me to this day. Yet by the time the waxing high tide finally reached the fire, to make it hiss, steam and wash away, we had cleared our section of bay and the two adjacent sections that lay between the jutting breakwaters.
AT ONE WITH THE COAST
The Torre Canyon disaster saw me starting to question what we were doing to our wonderful world. Such a fascinatingly mesmerising place for little me. Where, lying back and looking up into the starry heavens, I witnessed meteor showers so big and bright, that they cast sparkling reflections across the millpond blackness of the sea. Or the blazing summer sunsets, that set the waves and sand alight with molten golds and fiery ambers. Or freezing cold, foggy dawns, where the thick haw frost stuck the shingle together in a icy crust. And how my boots made it crunch and crack as I walked through the opaque whiteness, to the obscured, muted seashore. The deep, resonant moan of a distant fog horn my only accompaniment. Through such varied and emotive experiences, I embraced my surroundings and began to feel at one with the coast. But in 1973 the relationship was forged forever when I first laid eyes on the mighty Atlantic Ocean.
It was on a summer holiday to Porthleven on Cornwall's South Coast. Where the big turquoise breakers on Loe Bar and impossibly clear waters around the harbour, held me transfixed for two fantastic weeks. It was all so wonderfully and profoundly moving. In swimming, snorkelling, fishing and body-boarding, I had surely found my element. In all of my twelve short years, I had never felt so alive! So when the time came to head home, through a wobbling bottom lip, I precociously vowed to Mum and Dad that one day I would live in Cornwall...
...And that was before I'd even set foot on the magnificent Atlantic Coast!
Learning lessons
As for my photography, it all started around this time too. Both my Grandfathers and my Dad were keen amateurs. I loved their magic lantern evenings where the fruits of their labours were projected up large in glorious Fuji, Agfa or Kodak Colour. This was back when TV was a small, grainy black and white. Hence their big, colourful images made a huge impression. This was duly noted, as was my constant pestering to have a go with Dad's precious new Minolta set-up. For until then I had only been trusted with a clunky old Box-Brownie.
Subsequently for my twelfth birthday I was given a 35mm Kodak Instamatic, and the world of imaging opened up before me... Or as far as 'point and squirt' photography and my paper round money would stretch!
"A COCKY LITTLE TWERP..."
On the education front things were changing too. After ascension to Senior school and initially showing scant enthusiasm for academia but a willing ability to get into trouble, the outgoing Headmaster turned things around for me. For Mr. Bowerman - an ex-RAF fighter pilot who smoked a pipe and spoke in ebullient Queen's English - had ruled Ruxley Lane with a strict tongue and, if required, a swish of the cane, for years. He constantly reminded us, his "Chipper, wide-eyed minions" that he "had no truck with shabby behaviour". Something I'd found out in my first few months, after being hauled up in front of him "Thrice!". As a result he pigeon-holed me as "A cocky little twerp with less than bugger all to offer!"
Bacchanal - Figures reclining and drinking in a landscape - A. Bowerman
However, coinciding with my Senior move the Comprehensive System was introduced. In protest at what he pronounced "an educational travesty spawned by namby-pamby farts!" Mr. Bowerman had resigned his position. But luckily for me, he didn't go far. Because, as a noted Landscape artist, he took up the post of Head of Art. A fortuitous move in that this was the one class I paid attention in.
Upon entering his new department he'd seen my paintings, and in a move new to the school, had some framed and hung around the corridor walls. The first I knew was when standing in the dinner queue and looking up to see my seascape of a lifeboat rescue prominently displayed. I had to do a double take, but once sure it was indeed my picture, I proudly pointed it out to my friends.
"Yeah we know..." they nodded " there's two more up the main staircase."
"Don't get excited Simmons, they're only hiding cracks" Mr. Bowerman teased. Yet as a lowly 1st Year, such recognition had me swelling with pride. To top this off, in Games we'd had our first swimming session at Epsom Baths, where I'd left my peers bobbing in my wake. The mightily impressed Games Master had called me over at the end of the session.
"Come on then Simmons, show us what you can do" he encouraged. So I went to the shallow end, dived in, and swam the length underwater. I climbed out the deep end to Mr. Gillette's applause and on the coach back to school, he appointed me 1st Year Captain of 'Livingstone' Team.
This combination of events had a positive effect and I settled in to schooling. From then on, other than a few dodgy reviews in Maths and from 'Spud' the Rural Science teacher, my school reports started to shine.
A FINE ART ATTITUDE
Yet Art was my subject and for the next seven years Anthony Bowerman took me under his wing. He used photography in his preparatory works and taught me to use a camera as "a creative tool and not a bloody scientific instrument". In all that I created, he urged me to "Adopt a Fine Art attitude my boy... for only one's best efforts will ever suffice". If ever I presented him with work he thought was lacking such integrity, he'd take the ever-present pipe from between his teeth and stare me straight in the eye.
"Never accept less!" he'd say, punctuating the word 'less' with a prod of the pipe to my shoulder.
I thrived on this challenge, and by 5th Year I'd been given a key to his preciously guarded Photography Department he'd somehow managed to set up in an out-of-bounds section of the main school building. Armed with a brand new Olympus OM1 and endless rolls of Ilford black & white film, I sought expression through experimenting with manual settings and darkroom techniques.
I revelled in such freedom and inspirational tutorage. So much so that I enrolled into 6th Form to carry it on for two more wonderful years. The only other subject I notionally studied was History, the rest of my time was dedicated to Art.
The Fighting Temeraire - JMW Turner - 1838
From this juncture I gave up my childhood ambition of following in Monsieur Cousteau's wake and becoming a Marine Biologist. Now I knew the creative arts were going to form the foundation of my career in one medium or another. And while my level-headed Mum wasn't so sure, Dad - whose own considerable artistic skills were left un-tapped until he attended evening classes in his late 40's - gave me his full encouragement. Throughout my teens he took me to many art exhibitions and galleries. On one such visit to The National, I came across the incredible works of Joseph Mallord William Turner RA. What a star! I thought as I stood in awe before 'The Fighting Temeraire'. A single moment that sparked an appreciation and affection to last a lifetime.
When time came to leave his incomparable guidance behind, Tony Bowerman's shining reference got me in to Epsom College of Art & Design and thereafter a Junior Art Director's role amongst the bright lights of London's Advertising scene.
Here, alongside my own photographic commissions, I got to work with a range of noted photographers and Colour Houses. Witnessing how experts worked their light and processed imagery was both a privilege and huge boon. Also the timing could not have been better. For while I had my photographic roots set firmly in film and darkroom, this was the mid 80's and a creative uprising was looming on the horizon. In the coming years I was ideally placed to embrace the exciting new technologies that would change Imaging forever.
The Digital Revolution
By the late 80's the Creative Industry had been turned on its head. Bustling design studios and processing labs full of talented artists and technicians were being replaced by sterile computer suites manned by a few 'grey' computer operators. The exceptional creative output the UK was noted for dried-up as these 'Imaging Technicians', who knew their way around the multi-million pound IBM kit, but lacked the creative juices to get anything special from it, floundered around. This was when the dismissive term 'photoshopped' came into everyday parlance and the reputation of professional photography reached its lowest ebb.
WILD WEST END
Yet the drought was soon over. Apple Macintosh came to the rescue with their affordably capable, graphics friendly hardware. Armed with a 'Mac' and handful of software packages, we newly re-trained creatives staged a comeback. When the Power Mac launched in the early 90's, Adobe Photoshop's notoriously temperamental, RAM hungry platform, was finally stabilised and tamed. Now its incredible imaging capabilities were fully unleashed to herald in the new 'Wild West End'.
Small creative Digital Hotshops popped-up all over London and started to take on the big agencies. I set one up in Covent Garden with a couple of talented freelance friends, an assistant and a studio junior. It was a fantastic time. With our potent computers, software and imaginations, the business boomed.
However, I didn't immediately embrace every aspect of Digital. The one area it really struggled in was photography. Outrageously expensive, ugly, unstable, hybrid digital cameras and the shabby little image files they produced left much to be desired. This was in no way a Fine Art medium and in my mind I could hear Tony Bowerman remonstrating "You're only cheating yourself my boy!" As a result, other than for pack shots and family snaps, I shunned digital photography for the next fifteen years. Insisting instead on working only with hi-resolution film scans - and in so doing, mastering Photoshop's full post-processing and editing potential.
SET ME FREE!
It wasn't until 2009, with the advent of the Raw file and Full Frame Sensor (and video capability) that I finally invested in my first DSLR. An impressive Canon EOS 5D MkII. In so doing, not only did it bring the lucrative revenue stream of Commercial Photography fully in-house, but out on my beloved coastline, it set me free!
Film's creative shackles of frame counting and a fixed ISO were gone. The exposure triangle had been rounded off and I could shoot to my heart's content. Plus, back in the studio, my editing, proofing and printing skills gave me the same experimental edge I enjoyed in the darkroom.
I invested further in a superb Canon 1DS MkIII alongside a range of lenses and Lee filters. Now, working with the best computer kit, programmes, papers, inks and printers, a brave new world of Fine Art Seascape Photography opened up before me.
Establishing credentials
When it came to creative inspiration down in the littoral, I found it rewarding to put a personal hero front and centre in all I did. A guiding star to strive toward and judge my efforts by. And this for me was not another photographer, it was Turner.
His experimental, multi-media approach to expressing the effect of directional light on weather and sea became the leading light of my Seascape approach. He too had loved Cornwall, and after taking a rowboat ferry across the Tamar for the first time in 1811 - long before the Newlyn School's artists had pinpointed St. Ives Bay's microclimate - Turner attested to the different kind of light he had discovered all around Mid and West Cornwall. I too had often witnessed this bright, clear, light that conjured such vivid colouration. Armed with my DSLRs, I headed out with visions and aspirations of capturing just a little of what Turner so masterfully conjured.
THE FERAL OCEAN RULES!
In so doing, I really started to get attuned to shooting out on the shoreline. For beyond the land-locked 'tamed' water features in a landscape - the rivers, waterfalls, lochs and lakes - that are restrained by their surroundings, out on the coast the feral ocean rules! Providing a dynamic, powerful, reflective, vitally expressive, constantly evolving visual element to work with. Creating a challenging, exciting fluid environment, where all my experience in surfing, fishing and diving offered real-time rewards. Helping me read the sea's moods, predict its actions and conduct and compose around its interplay with wild light and reflections.
From here on, commercial commissions saw me travelling up into the Arctic Circle and circling exotic equatorial climes. Yet in my own work, it was always the UK's Celtic coats that drew me back time and again. In particular Scotland's NW Highlands & Islands that are so stunningly majestic. The first time I laid eyes on Sandwood Bay, far up near Cape Wrath, I wandered its vast, golden shoreline with tears of wonder streaming down my cheeks. The same happened when I was given freedom to roam across the Ardtornish Estate in Morvern and discovered its many, rarely shot coastal outlooks.
I could happily have made a new life up there but for the fact that I had met Sam. A fabulous Truro lass and the love of my life. While she had moved up to live with me on the edge of Epping Forest, it was with the promise of heading west when the time was right. Yet we regularly returned to Cornwall to visit friends and family. Affording me the chance to get truly acquainted with the spectacular coastlines. Where, after going digital, my 'Cornish Seascapes' went from strength to strength.
In 2011, at Sam's insistence on my entering, I won the annual Cornish Point Of View photography competition with one of my Porthcurno images. This provided the spark that fired my confidence to do more. I launched a website and held my first solo exhibition. My image sales increased, and along with stock royalties and private commissions, I began to make a 'seascape living' and began to identify a new way forward.
When the time came for my two wonderful kids, Connor and Meghan, to go to university and art college, Sam and I headed west.
A new vision
When I finally kept my childhood promise and moved to Cornwall, it was with the aim of focussing solely on my seascape photography. Yet I knew that to make a living would take more than selling prints. I'd need a new vision that would address the current photography market, utilise my professional skill set, dovetail with the new lifestyle and exploit my knowledge and love for this wonderful part of the UK.
After a decade of burgeoning growth, DSLR sales were still on the up. This had created a booming 'enthusiast' market that was catered to by a multitude of diverse group tour and day trip operations. And this had got me thinking...
I COULD DO BETTER?
On my seascape travels I had come across many such courses. Where beyond the obvious revenue potential it offered the operator, I could see there was much scope for improvement. For in terms of individual learning, advancement and lasting reward, they all were lacking. So surely I could create something better?
Soon the germ of an idea became a fully-fledged new business concept. Drawing on my photographic passion, extensive professional skillset and wide-ranging coastal experience, I would host 'Cornish Seascape Workshops' from my new studio/home on the Atlantic Coast. Unique, one-to-one, residential courses focussing on the seascape discipline, but breaking the mould in terms of course content, client experience and exclusive focus.
In October 2013, my first paying client, Jen Beresford, a professional lifestyle photographer, said in her review "I never use the 'A' word, but my Cornish Seascape Workshop with Chris was 'Awesome'!" I used this in my advertising and it all went on from there!
Today
Today, alongside my ever-growing tome of personal work, I have earned a reputation for excellence and reward in photography and processing training. After investing in the design and build of a new studio/gallery and guest apartment annexe, under the banner of the Cornish Seascape Academy, my extended range of multi-award winning courses and photo-holidays go from strength to strength. Down in the littoral, I continue to thrive on my personal seascape challenges in furthering my approach. So all is good... with the exception of the ominous, dark cloud looming over the fine art horizon... Artificial intelligence!
'KEEP IT REAL!'
My heart sinks when I see AI migrating from social media outlets and less capable imaging software platforms, and creeping ever further into today's photographyworkflows. For this blinkered acceptance is diluting skills, dumbing down creativity, questioning the integrity and threatening the credibility of the art form I cherish.
I know this flies in the face of the progressive attitude the imaging industry and media are blindly espousing in order to remain 'relevant' (whatever that means?) and drive sales. And I do agree there are AI applications that are artistically relevant. For example, image file expansion software, where one remains in full control of the output is fine with me. But surely, when it comes to embellishing and falsifying photographic imagery through overt re-touching, or using 'Pre-set plug-in filters', 'HDR', 'Effects', 'Brushes', 'Sky replacement' etc. etc., then this is artificial, spoon-fed image making?
As such, photo-composites created using AI, should be labelled as such, judged in their own separate category, and kept well away from Fine Art Photography. In the face of lazy, accessible AI fakery, my mantra as I head down to the beach, is and will always remain... 'Keep it real!'
