Eddo Hartmann was the winner of the Landscape category and he spent several years in a remote part of the Soviet Union that was once home to major nuclear testing facilities. The public announcement of the winners of the Sony World Photography Awards were made on April 18. The 10 award winners across categories such as Creative, Portrait and Still Life, as well as thesustainability, youth and student, were present at the ceremony, where the legendary Sebastio Salgado received the Outstanding Contribution to Photography accolade. I was stopped in my tracks by some pictures and left wanting to know more about the series A Thousand Cuts by Sujata Setia from the UK and Father and Son by Valery Poshtarov. The creators being there to personally walk me through those stories made it all the more special. During the exhibition, I came across a topic that has been in my mind for over a year, which is Artificial Intelligence-generated images in photo contests. It was a headline that dominated the previous year's awards, as one of the category-winning images was generated using artificial intelligence. There was no mention of the topic of Artificial Intelligence during the photography awards. I was keener than ever to discuss the subject that was largely at odds with what I was seeing, because of the superb photos on display, the time, expense and dedication of the photographers and the bravery of their human subjects. Is there a place for artificial intelligence in photo contests? I sought out my favorite creatives from the awards, including Valery Poshtarov from the Portrait category, Sujata Setia from the Creative category, and the winner of the Still Life category, Federico Scarchilli from Italy. You will get the hottest deals in your inbox from the TechRadar team.
A Thousand Cuts by Sujata Setia is one of the competition winner galleries. I'm a hardcore traditionalist. "For me, I haven't tried to create yet with Artificial Intelligence. I used the meaning of lingchi to show the nature of domestic abuse. The act of chipping at the soul of the abused is expressed by making cuts on the portrait of the participant while the prints are made on thin paper. The final artwork is photographed in a tight crop to create a sense of suffocation and absence of room for movement.
She said that she hasn't tried to create yet with Artificial Intelligence. It is not the same as a human-produced photographic image and I don't think it should be. There is a category for artificial intelligence-generated images, but I believe it is not part of a portrait category or a creative category.
"The tech is going forward and as artists we need to follow the tech as it develops." Plants are one of the main suppliers of drugs and should be considered as the producers of chemical substances. They have developed many secondary metabolites that perform various ecological functions for the plant, such as repellence, defense from herbivores, fighting against other plant species for resource control, defense from parasites and attraction to pollinators. 40 percent of monomolecular drugs derive from plant species, and these secondary metabolites have shown important pharmacological activities in humans, which constitute the active ingredients or the main components on which the curative action of a drug depends. The series highlights the important role of pharmacognosy in modern biology.
Artificial intelligence-generated images are fine, as long as you follow the tech as it develops. The viewer knows what they are seeing when they visit an exhibition. Reality can be manipulated by not knowing what you are seeing. Father and Son by Valery Poshtarov. "These people are authentic human beings, present and connected," Valery Poshtarov said at the awards. Valery says that holding hands becomes a silent prayer in a world that is already growing apart. It is a powerful moment, filled with hesitation or even resistance. The photographs were just a testament to the long-unspoken love between the men. The presence of real life is still missing if the artificial intelligence is able to produce aesthetically pleasing images.
The project spans cultures, reaching corners of Bulgaria, Georgia, Turkey, Armenia, Serbia and Greece and encourages fathers and sons from around the world to join the act. By leaving the narratives behind, these portraits become open to interpretation and I invite viewers to add their own layers of meaning, making us all contributors to this evolving story of humanity. These people are authentic human beings, living, experiencing something that they have never experienced before, being present and connected, is unique and cannot be replicated. I see a completely new story with each new portrait, because I see the presence of real life in the images. There are two more people holding hands.
A deafening silence.
I had open conversations with several professional and award-winning photographers about the need for open conversations about artificial intelligence, and the photo competition organizers' silence about it is deafening. The people I talked to had differing opinions on using artificial intelligence in photo contests. If you will, it would be better to allow the creation of a defined space for it within the competition, rather than cutting it out completely. Will the World Photography Organisation, which looks after the Sony World Photography Awards, create an artificial intelligence-generated category? It's better to let in blow over than to adapt. We don't know the stance of photography because we don't know what Scott Gray meant when he said that "photography is at the forefront, constantly adapting and evolving". The exhibition is open to the public from April 19 to April 25.