who said photography is dead?

The internet has been awash lately with the new Artificial Intelligence, erm, thingamabob.

You can have it write for you which I'd imagine your average post-graduate student would find absolutely invaluable (disclaimer - not really, I'm sure they all produce their own individual work...) and have it create a picture from a few key words you put into its "engine", as well as countless other things you'd normally use your own actual brain for.

Many photographers have proclaimed this as the death of the format.

It isn't, of course, and there will always be demand for original, unique, innovative work created by a human and not a machine.

Anyway, coincidentally and rather bizarrely, at the start of this year I had an idea for a photo project, which would see me creeping around graveyards at the extremes of the day to take hopefully atmospheric (read spooky!) pictures.  I haven't as yet seen the project through, but in light of all this AI stuff I have decided on the ideal camera for the job.

perfect

even more perfect 

It's a sixty-year-old Fujica medium format film camera.  It shoots 6cmx6cm negatives onto rolls of 120 film, and I've bought some Black & White (obvs) Ilford FP4 film stock for the job.  I also dug out an old light meter (the camera is fully manual and has nothing of the sort) which I'll need to calibrate by using one of my digital cameras at least until I know I can trust it.

So, what I'll do is shoot a roll of test film first before committing to any Burke and Hare style tactics, and as long as the camera is working reasonably well I'll be off creeping around graveyards.

Now, this isn't going to be a quick process.  I'll need to scout out interesting locations, look at the best time of day to shoot there and obviously take and develop the pictures.  But finish this project I will, even if it ki... no let's not go there.

So, photography isn't dead.  Some of its subjects maybe, but the art form itself - certainly not.

I'll tell you what else isn't dead, and that's my YouTube channel - and you can watch my latest self-made video reviewing my Fujifilm X-T5 camera just by clicking below.  Now, that's actual intelligence for you!