Regarding AI Colorization /  by Nick McOwen

The AI revolution is surging like water through a pinhole crack in a dam, promising only to rush and gush and break through in a deluge of change. Ethical consideration aside, the philosophical frontier is burgeoning as quickly as the technology.

Even as I write this, a lightning bolt jiggles, tempting me to use the Squarespace AI. I resist its sultry dance and instead prefer the convoluted thoughts of my own brain. I hope this makes more sense to you than the AI could convey it, but we’ll never know. This isn’t to say I’m immune from using AI, in fact, I quite enjoy the absurdity that it currently brings. Which got me thinking…

Plaza Midwood, Charlotte, NC sometime in December 2022

The image above, a photograph taken with a toy camera using black and white film, colorized using AI software, and then sculpted by an imaging program is not reality. Sure, it represents a physical moment in a time where a cellphone can easily capture the image, but the colors have gone through two different metamorphoses, evolving it into a liminal time space. A modern suburban scape transformed by artificial intelligence into something anachronistic.

One would think that the database used to train the AI model would use thousands and thousands of images that more or less represent colors seen in the real world. Why then did it choose to evoke tones of a bygone era? Perhaps I could pass this off as a photo I found, taken by someone in the 1960’s, but that would only serve to further compound the lie that the AI started (encouraged by me of course). And so here we meet at a moral and ethical crossroads, looking for a street sign for how to guide us. It is real while simultaneously being unreal.

Where do we go? Obviously, any image purely generated by AI should be claimed as such. But what about images enhanced or corrected? Do artists caveat every photo that is corrected or touched up in Photoshop? “Hey, everyone, I used Photoshop to remove a foot from the corner of this photo, FYI.” No, this doesn’t happen, or at least not frequently. This means anything altered in Photoshop is fundamentally no more real than an image altered with AI. To further this line of thinking, what is the difference between lines of code doing something in 15 minutes that could be done manually in an hour or two? Again, there is a line in the sand when it comes to AI and art, but I wonder if the energy used to lambast those utilizing AI for their work will be directed equally among all artists who modify their images.

I’m sure this has all been discussed and written about in the great think tanks and academic journals, but this is how I rationalize what’s happening, by rambling. I enjoy using the tool because it lets me explore that space between real and fiction. Like one’s thoughts adrift standing in a grocery line - you’re simultaneously present while being absent.

The Privacy We Seek /  by Nick McOwen

Is there such a concept as privacy anymore? Anyone with a smartphone is trackable and recordable whether they want to admit it or not. Any website we visit, or image we click, is recorded and added to our digital profile (thanks for being here by the way). And somehow, anything we say to our friends in passing becomes an ad on our social media.

When I happened on a video camera in a bathroom somewhere in New York City I hesitated for a moment, wondering if it was actually recording me. Of course it wasn’t, and I knew that. But I still needed to convince myself for some reason. The transparency of seeing the recording device gave me freedom, a choice, even if it was artificial. I could continue with my business, or leave and hope the next destination has a bathroom. I proceeded with me original intent and if it was recorded, at least I had my choice.

Yet, if we were afforded this transparency, would things actually be different? Perhaps the comfort of knowing how we are manipulated is all we seek. Anger and fear derived from the opaqueness of technology is simply a reaction to that which we can’t control. Opting out of cookies and tracking website seems like it would suffice, but somehow just the right kind of ads still manage to get in front of us.

We’re only watching. It’s not that weird if you think about it. We know you like it.

In the Desert: Shooting Cinestille 800T in Daylight (Copy) /  by Nick McOwen

I’ll be honest, I’m late to the party when it comes to shooting CineStill 800T. The repurposed movie stock cut and formatted for still cameras immediately piqued my interest after watching several Willem Verbeeck and Jason Kummerfeldt videos. I bought a few rolls and promptly took photographs of a gas station. The trademark halations were present and I was really excited to see what I could do with this film stock.

However, I had an outing to northern Arizona planned but half a roll of CineStill 800T left in my Nikon FM2. I wanted to know how the film performed in the desert and if it would be worth taking it with me. I decided to ask the all knowing internet clairvoyant that is Google.

Search results… 404 not found.

Unable to find any samples of 800T being used for desert photography (albeit only looking for 20 minutes), I decided to play mad scientist and head out to the desert to shoot some CineStill. I even bought a roll of 120 film just incase I was feeling a little crazy.

Toadstool Hoodoos shot on 35mm CineStill 800T

I decided it would try the film out at the Toadstool Hoodoos, a geological formation about 35 minutes from Page, AZ or about 45 from Kanab, UT.

Being a true man of science, I brought my Fuji X-T30 along with my Portra 800 loaded Rolleiflex to take a comparison photo or two.

The differences are quite drastic. I didn’t edit any of the photos before posting as I wanted to see how everything looked straight out of the camera. For context, I shot the photos around 6:30am, about an hour after sunrise. To me the CineStill looks like it was shot in the middle of the day and, as expected, the cooler film brings forward more of the greens and blues. While the color of the sand looks great to me, the X-T30 did a better job showing the true color at that moment by turning the sand a more golden orange. I only took one photo with Portra because… if you’ve shot 120mm Portra 800 you know why. If not, it’s something near $2.50 a photograph.

Clearly CineStill won’t be capturing that early morning/late afternoon mood that so many photographers seek and I’m not shocked the warmth of the early morning sun didn’t translate onto the film. But at ISO 800, the grain looks great compared to the ruthless renderings of a digital sensor and I even prefer the blue of it’s sky to the blue of the Portra’s sky. In fact, I quite like the muted reds that it captured in the desert as well. It reminds me of some of the old desaturated Kodachrome photos of the 70s and 80s.

So, where Portra typically gives a warm familial hug, CineStill offers the cold and inhospitable handshake of that in-law you disappoint too frequently. I believe the CineStill can be used effectively and if you know what you are trying to achieve it can be a great tool. I certainly plan on taking a few rolls with me whenever I go back to the southwest in the future. But knowing how this film can cool down an image faster than Freddie Jackson sipping a milkshake in a snow storm can, I’ll be very deliberate in it’s application.

I’ll update this post in the future after I’ve taken more photos with CineStill in the desert. Until then, I hope this helps at least one frustrated photographer wondering if it’s worth the costs and development.