Opinion: AI is changing the creative industry, but it won't kill photography

AI-generated Images created using DALL·E 2
(Image credit: Mike Harris - OpenAI)

It’s been a busy month on N-Photo magazine. First, I captured a long exposure of a waterfall before visiting the Cornish coast to capture summer blooms. Then, I photographed the Milky Way core (in the middle of the day) and finished by capturing a blurry image of the Loch Ness monster. And that was all before I photographed a portrait of a person – who doesn’t exist, I might add – and a zebra, riding a unicycle in front of a supermoon… 

If you haven’t already guessed, I didn’t actually photograph any of those increasingly absurd images. Instead, I used an artificial-intelligence image generator: DALL•E 2. This clever browser-based software uses AI to generate images of whatever you type into a search bar. 

N-Photo: The Nikon Magazine

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Mike Harris
Technique Editor

Mike is Deputy Editor for N-Photo: The Nikon Magazine, and brings with him over 10 years experience writing both freelance and for some of the biggest specialist publications. Prior to joining N-Photo Mike was the production editor for the content marketing team of Wex Photo Video, the UK’s largest online specialist photographic retailer, where he sharpened his skills in both the stills and videography spheres.  


While he’s an avid motorsport photographer, his skills extend to every genre of photography – making him one of Digital Camera World’s top tutors for techniques on cameras, lenses, tripods, filters and other imaging equipment, as well as sharing his expertise on shooting everything from portraits and landscapes to abstracts and architecture to wildlife and, yes, fast things going around race tracks.