AI and (My) Photography
I have gone back and forth for weeks about this blog post. Do I confess, or do I keep quiet and carry on?
Ok, "confess" is aggressive, but here’s the thing...
When I started writing this blog, I was excited to have another outlet to share the personal side of my photography — the why, the how, the hurdles, the meaning, the journey. Somewhere along the line, after getting a few written and posted, something changed. The imposter syndrome swept in and swept over me. I struggled to hit that post button fearing that my writing AND my photography weren't good enough — that I wasn't good enough. Maybe I should have seen it coming, the imposter syndrome that is, I’m certainly familiar enough with it.
I ran a few blogs through AI thinking I was basically asking for a set of (digital) eyes to review and give me feedback, and instead it kind of chopped up my words, put them in a blender, and spit them back out. Almost like taking the ingredients for a cake and elevating them to go from one of my homemade cakes to a Joanna Gaines–level cake. I was like, wow!! THIS is what I was trying to say!!!
My thoughts, my heart, and maybe most of my words, but organized and with a beautiful cadence! Yes please!
I used it for a couple of social media captions too — that's where all of this started. The constant pressure to keep putting out content. I was exhausted. But where was that pressure coming from? No one was texting me saying "Kristy, you didn't post today — loser!" No, it was pressure I put on myself after seeing what other people were doing on social media, and seeing how successful they were with it.
Couple of captions, couple of blogs, it didn’t take long before it stopped sitting right with me, because the thing is — I’m a whole lot of messy and imperfect. Sometimes I struggle to get my point across. Sometimes I’m all over the place, with the true meaning of what I’m trying to say buried in run-on sentences and conflicting thoughts or ideas. But that’s ME. That’s exactly who I am in real life and who is behind the lens of KMP. It's kind of my magic.
I’ve built this little business on a foundation of authenticity, regardless of how imperfect.
A long time ago, I made a promise to myself that I was going to make a forever commitment to always be growing and learning — I mean, the tagline on my website says Learning As I Go, Loving Every Minute. That’s not just my truth, it’s a daily reminder.
Years later, when the doubt crept back in, I went and got a damn tattoo that says be bold. be passionate. be true. because I wanted that to be the way I show up — permanently.
Both of these things are reminders of not only how I want to continue to build KMP, but also the kind of person that I want to be. To let go of the impossible goal of perfection and instead fully embrace the journey of growth.
There are times (and always will be) where I fall back into a place of self-doubt, resulting in this impossible perfectionist mindset — that’s exactly what AI triggered in me.
That "I’m not good enough" feeling because this “correction” is so much better.
I can’t learn, I can’t grow, I can’t expand my mind, my thoughts, my feelings, and my perspectives if I don’t find those improvements on my own, through trial and error — successes and failures.
Will AI still be a part of my life? Of course — I still use spell check. I still Google EVERYTHING. I still need help finding that last word of a sentence that suddenly disappears from my brain (welcome to being over 40), or help writing a 15-line formula that I’ve been stuck on for hours in my day job.
But,
My thoughts and my feelings are my own.
My words, even if they’re messy — are mine.
And these — dashes — are mine too.
AI is a resource, not a replacement and with it comes responsibility and a requirement for discipline (at least for me).
The way I write — with my run-on sentences, over-use of commas, and dashes dumped everywhere, is how my brain works. I think in bullet points, and I speak with too many words crammed into a single sentence, and when a random (and often misplaced) thought enters, you will find it in parentheses. It's just who I am, correct or not. My friends know this, my clients learn it quickly, and I don't know why I tried to change it here.
My photography is mine too. The soft images, the ones that are a little too warm, and the ones where the horizon line is crooked but the moment was too good so I let it slide. All of it is mine, it is me — and I am a work in progress.
Do I want to become a better writer — yes, I think I do.
Do I want to become a better photographer — heck yeah!
And I will — in my own way, in my own time, with lots of experimenting, some success, and countless failures.
What I need to remember is that those failures don't make ME a failure and therefore I should not be scared of them.
The more AI penetrates our lives, the more I long for things that are real and the feeling that true authenticity stirs deep inside. I'm not going to try to explain it — this is where I admit that I don't have the words for it. But I am familiar with that feeling and I wonder if you might be too.
KMP is about showing up, exactly as you are. Not a false version of yourself that appears “perfect” — whatever that means.
It’s about being seen, not performing.
That’s why I’ll absolutely never allow an AI-generated image to be posted under KMP, and that’s why I don’t alter faces or bodies beyond light touch-ups. That pimple is not who you are, but those laugh lines sure are.
Yes, my edits deepen greens of grass and gardens and emphasize warm, earthy tones. And if a car in the background is distracting from your senior portraits — I’m absolutely going to remove it. The same way I will remove the pimple that magically appeared the day before your session (the worst!).
But I’m not going to change who you are.
So why was I changing who I am to write a “better” blog?
I picked up my first camera because I saw so much beauty in the messiness of life.
I picked up a pen to write my first real poem way back in the fourth grade.
I’ve also allowed both of these things to trigger deep insecurities (then and now) and drive this unrealistic desire to be perfect.
That’s not what KMP is about.
It’s not what I advertise.
It’s not what I ask of my clients.
And it’s damn time I stop asking it of myself.
Cheers to the imperfect.
Love to you all (and to myself).
-K