Greetings,

We made it through our nine-day trip in the trailer just fine. We really love having a tiny house on wheels. My son crafted a much larger tabletop, which worked very well. And we have over 3000 miles logged with the trailer for this summer. With gas prices what they are, we will probably stick closer to home and just boondock in some Arizona forest occasionally.

I did get a chance to do some new edits of Aurora at the tail end of our trip. It was nice to work on some of our past work. She spent time with us for five summers in a row. She even went on vacations with us. She lives a ways off now and has animals she cares for, so getting away is much harder.

I’m sure those of you who follow Aurora O’brien know she is a fantastic artist. I’ve enjoyed watching her grow in skill and confidence over the years. Check out her art and follow her.

On Tuesday, I had a couple of shoots and helped another photographer with the lights while he shot with one of the models. A little more Ziva and Ruby will be coming up in future issues.

On our trips, I have a smaller full-screen pad to edit with. It wasn’t doing some things very well, so I updated the software for it, and it became a fantastic tool. So much easier to use now. Taking a cue from that, I updated my larger screen drawing tablets, which also work much smoother.

We are heading into the holidays quickly, which usually means people are busy with family and friends, and far less shooting goes on. I've shot a lot less myself with all of the vacations we’ve taken this summer.

I worry that the AI craze may remove any need for photographers. I think artists are safe from AI because people like to obtain real art done by a human hand and mind. Photographers have been on the edge as each generation of cell phones does so much better than the previous generation. I could do a fairly good shoot using my cell phone. I may try that soon and see if you all even notice.

Understanding light is important for photographers, but playing with AI, it’ll make changes on its own or place lights where you tell it. I often cruise the net looking for inspiring images to help me get ideas for my next shoot. I’ve found some things I love lately, only to discover it was created in AI. If you have not tried AI, you simply give it a sentence or paragraph explaining what you want, giving you four examples, and narrowing it down from there.

To give you an example of how invasive AI has gotten, this web page has a button I COULD press and give it a short sentence on what to say. And, it would write it for me. Of course, I never will.

To be a great conversationalist, ask questions and listen. Repeat.

“Be curious, not judgemental” - Walt Whittman

And if you’d like to give me any feedback on these Museletters, feel free! I love to hear from you all! - Contact form