Greetings,

You know, I don’t consider those of you who enjoy my art as followers. We are on a journey together to enjoy life, and art is nothing but something to be enjoyed. Am I right?

Today was a bit of a bummer. I’d been planning a cool adventure to Globe with some great friends and even greater photographers. One thing after another went wrong with the plans until the only sane thing to do was to cancel the trip. The location won’t be available again. But alas, the planet is large, and I expect there are other fine locations to shoot.

I did have a few shoots this week, and some of the results are in the gallery. We did some creative things. Some I’ve done before, but everyone brings their own look to it, having different parents and all.

Of course, I’ll be mixing some oldies but favorites are in the mix as I have far less time to edit when I’m shooting. Shoots don’t last just a couple of hours. There are a few hours to prep (clean up the studio and wardrobe) and then a few to properly store and back up the files.

The video for this week is of the beautiful and talented Ziva. I’ve worked with her for as long as I can remember. Maybe even before last week. Some of the body scapes we created will always be favorites. I’ll include them in the gallery, and you’ll see why. And probably recognize them as I post them often. She’s also a sweetie pie.

In the last issue talked about AI and how interesting it is. I’ve tamped down my amazement after learning more about what we call AI right now. It really isn’t much more than a plagiarizing machine. When you ask it a question, it uses everything it has scraped off the internet and feeds it to you in phrases instead of links. It might be more honest if it included the authors of the content it grabbed to babble back to you. Those authors of the popular web content, like Reddit, are looking into suing the AI companies for portions of the profits since it is their hard work providing the ‘education’ that the AI companies used.

The same goes for the digital art. All images are just cobbed together things from images and artists and photographers that meet the construct you have given it. The dead giveaway is that you can ask for a view of Yellows Stone in the style of Ansel Adams. Only now are the AI engines starting to learn how to figure out hand and arm placement because when it mixes a dozen images together to create what you asked for, you can easily have three arms or a random hand on someone’s shoulder. Pretty creepy.

So, for now, I’ll stick with using it for some simple backgrounds and not worry. I think we have another. 50 years before a computer wakes up and says, “Hey, why are all of these carbon units making a mess of things?!?” And it’ll be called Skynet.

Stay open-minded and curious, my friends!

Dave

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