With Mystery Tattoos, Sustainably Minded Sculptures, and Gold-Accented Concert Posters, the Seattle Art Fair Revels in an Eclectic Selection

By in Art World News

With Mystery Tattoos, Sustainably Minded Sculptures, and Gold-Accented Concert Posters, the Seattle Art Fair Revels in an Eclectic Selection

At this year’s Seattle Art Fair, there is art for every budget—including those who literally can’t afford to spend a penny, courtesy of Dinos Chapman, who is offering free tattoos of new works of art he is making up on the spot. The catch? Recipients aren’t allowed to see the design until after its completion.

“You pay nothing—just you might have something horrible on your arm,” Chapman told Artnet News.

The British artist, now based in Los Angeles, has done performances at fairs before, drawing insulting portraits and defacing bank notes with brother Jake Chapman, with whom he split professionally last year. But the Seattle Art Fair (which kicked off on July 27 and runs through through July 30 at the Lumen Field Event Center) was the first one to agree to let him set up a glory-hole style tattoo station—titled Mistakes Made, Nothing Learned—with the only restriction being that the tattoos not contain anything obscene.

Kate Lovejoy gets a tattoo designed by Dinos Chapman, site unseen, through a glory hole at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo by Ben Yan, courtesy of the Seattle Art Fair.

Kate Lovejoy gets a tattoo designed by Dinos Chapman, sight unseen, through a glory hole at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo: Ben Yan, courtesy of the Seattle Art Fair.

Chapman has been in the hot seat himself—and wasn’t so lucky when he let a tattoo artist and friend who is responsible for most of his 13 tattoos ink him with the design of his choosing.

“It took four hours, and I didn’t know what it was until it was finished. He managed to convince me he’d tattooed a cock on my chest. But it was actually a devil’s anus, and I was slightly disappointed as I had gotten used to the idea of a cock,” Chapman recalled. (That said, it’s not even his least favorite tattoo. That would be the words “I’m with idiot” on Chapman’s bicep, below a finger pointing to his chest.)

At the Seattle fair, with local tattoo artist Colin O’Shaughnessy Tucker manning the tattoo gun, Chapman expects to execute 18 to 20 tattoos during the run of the fair, drawing a new design on the spot for each participant. (All of the slots were full ahead of the VIP preview thanks to pre-registration.)

Kate Lovejoy sees her tattoo designed by Dinos Chapman for the first time at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo by Sarah Cascone.

Kate Lovejoy sees her tattoo designed by Dinos Chapman for the first time at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo by Sarah Cascone.

Fairgoer Kate Lovejoy, an education director at an area art school, signed up because “it seemed like an invitation to interact with regret,” she told Artnet News. “I enjoyed the process of thinking about whether I had regrets or not.”

In the end, there wasn’t so much chagrin as joy: “It’s beautiful! I love it so much!” Lovejoy proclaimed after pulling her arm back through the hole to see the finished tattoo of a strange geometric creature.

It was Chapman’s first visit to the Seattle Art Fair, which launched in 2015 and is now in its seventh edition. After a two-year pandemic hiatus, the fair returned in 2022 under new management by Art Market Productions, which took over from the late founder Paul Allen’s now-defunct Vulcan Arts and Entertainment.

The Seattle Art Fair. Photo by Sarah Cascone.

The Seattle Art Fair. Photo: Sarah Cascone.

This year’s outing features some 70 international dealers—down from over 100 exhibitors pre-Covid—hailing from as far afield as Japan, Argentina, and the U.K., as well as a strong contingent of Pacific Northwest and West Coast galleries.

Perhaps the most unexpected was Fotowat Atelier, of Isfahan, Iran, which was selling jewel-like miniatures by owner Mostafa Fotovat, his daughter Atefeh Fotovat, and his other students.

“These are done on camel bone with natural pigments: lapis lazuli, skin of pomegranate, saffron,” Atefeh Fotovat told Artnet News.

Persian miniatures from Fotovat Atelier at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo by Sarah Cascone.

Persian miniatures from Fotovat Atelier at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo by Sarah Cascone.

At only their third U.S. fair after outings in San Francisco and the Hamptons, the gallery was doing brisk business for delicate figurative and animal paintings and decorated boxes, priced between $500 and $8,500.

Across the fair, most of the offerings were contemporary, with a smattering of mid-to-late 20th-century works dotting the aisles. The admitted “odd man out” had to be Chicago’s Galerie Fledermaus, where a rare print of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss priced at $125,000 was the centerpiece.

Jerry Suqi of Chicago's Galerie Fledermaus shows off rare portfolio of Gustav Klimt prints. at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo by Sarah Cascone.

Jerry Suqi of Chicago’s Galerie Fledermaus shows off a rare portfolio of Gustav Klimt prints at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo: Sarah Cascone.

“We show a mix of historic and contemporary with a unified aesthetic that happens to span 150 years,” director Jerry Suqi told Artnet News.

The Kiss was on offer alongside the full portfolio of calotype prints the artist had produced between 1908 and 1914 using as many as 18 etched-glass plates to create each image. But among the booth’s early sales was the $18,500 gilded charcoal drawing Sofia Summoning Spring (2023), a darkly romantic figurative work by 33-year-old artist Alessandra Maria.

imageSofia Summoning Spring (2023). Courtesy of Galerie Fledermaus.” width=”1024″ height=”900″ srcset=”https://www.mecreates.com/story/news/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/dsc_7935-2-1024×900.jpeg 1024w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/dsc_7935-2-300×264.jpeg 300w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/dsc_7935-2-1536×1350.jpeg 1536w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/dsc_7935-2-2048×1800.jpeg 2048w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/dsc_7935-2-50×44.jpeg 50w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/dsc_7935-2-1920×1687.jpeg 1920w” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”>

Alessandra Maria, Sofia Summoning Spring (2023). Courtesy of Galerie Fledermaus.

The fair also boasted an impressive selection of special projects, including a hanging mobile in the form of a model of the solar system by Jeffrey Gibson titled The Many Worlds, presented by the ICA San Francisco and New York gallery Sikkema Jenkins.

The impressive piece, which was was always going to be a showstopper, was even buzzier thanks to Gibson having been announced earlier that day as the U.S. representative for the 2024 Venice Biennale.

imageThe Many Worlds, presented by the ICA San Francisco and New York gallery Sikkema Jenkins at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo by Ben Yan, courtesy of the Seattle Art Fair.” width=”731″ height=”1024″ srcset=”https://www.mecreates.com/story/news/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/The-Many-Worlds-1-1-731×1024.jpg 731w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/The-Many-Worlds-1-1-214×300.jpg 214w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/The-Many-Worlds-1-1-1097×1536.jpg 1097w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/The-Many-Worlds-1-1-1463×2048.jpg 1463w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/The-Many-Worlds-1-1-36×50.jpg 36w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/The-Many-Worlds-1-1-1372×1920.jpg 1372w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/The-Many-Worlds-1-1-scaled.jpg 1829w” sizes=”(max-width: 731px) 100vw, 731px”>

Jeffrey Gibson, The Many Worlds, presented by the ICA San Francisco and New York gallery Sikkema Jenkins at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo: Ben Yan, courtesy of the Seattle Art Fair.

Another standouts in that sector was Seattle-born Marita Dingus’s Where the Castoffs Grow Materials (2022–23), a series of suspended figurative sculptures crafted by the feminist African American artist from found materials.

“Marita has been a very important artist here in Seattle for more than 30 years,” said dealer Sarah Traver, founder of Seattle’s Traver Gallery. “People have come to know that she uses found and discarded materials, so she gets gifted a lot of things when people are cleaning out attics or garages. And Marita, more than any other artist I know, really embodies her work. She makes all her own clothes and she’s really conscious of her own consumption.”

As the first day of the fair drew to a close, Traver was pleased with the initial results, citing sales of several of Dingus’s works, which start at $800 and go up to $20,000. “It’s been really busy in here,” she said.

imageWhere the Castoffs Grow Materials, presented by Seattle’s Traver Gallery at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo by Sarah Cascone.” width=”768″ height=”1024″ srcset=”https://www.mecreates.com/story/news/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_0747-768×1024.jpg 768w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/IMG_0747-225×300.jpg 225w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/IMG_0747-1152×1536.jpg 1152w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/IMG_0747-1536×2048.jpg 1536w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/IMG_0747-38×50.jpg 38w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/IMG_0747-1440×1920.jpg 1440w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/IMG_0747-scaled.jpg 1920w” sizes=”(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px”>

Marita Dingus, Where the Castoffs Grow Materials (2022–23), presented by Seattle’s Traver Gallery at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo: Sarah Cascone.

Walking the aisles on the bustling opening night, which attracted 5,000 visitors, you would never know that the fair’s future had once been uncertain.

The evening featured spirited live performances of local artist Tariqa Waters’s new educational TV talk show, Thank You Ms Pam. A large, boisterous crowd gathered to watch acts roller-skate dancing to the tune of Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” at a colorful performance lounge, which featured a Lucy-from-Peanuts-style booth advertising psychiatric help for 5¢.

imageThank You Ms Pam at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo by Ben Yan, courtesy of the Seattle Art Fair.” width=”1024″ height=”768″ srcset=”https://www.mecreates.com/story/news/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/MS.PAM-2-1024×768.jpg 1024w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/MS.PAM-2-300×225.jpg 300w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/MS.PAM-2-1536×1152.jpg 1536w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/MS.PAM-2-2048×1536.jpg 2048w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/MS.PAM-2-50×38.jpg 50w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/07/MS.PAM-2-1920×1440.jpg 1920w” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”>

Tariqa Waters, Thank You Ms Pam at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo: Ben Yan, courtesy of the Seattle Art Fair.

There were even crowd-control measures in place at New York’s Harman Projects, where master screen printer Chuck Sperry—famed for his concert posters for acts like the Queens of the Stone Age, the Who, and Dave Matthews Band—was releasing print editions of five new works. The artist had also delved into his archive for the occasion, selling rare test prints and back stock of older designs.

“Chuck prints them all by hand. He makes his own emulsions and custom colors. It’s pretty fascinating,” dealer Ken Harman told Artnet News.

Sperry’s poster career began 30 years ago, but about 12 years ago, travels in Europe inspired him to begin creating his own independent designs, influenced by the work of artists like Alphonse Mucha, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Klimt.

Gallery director Raul Barquet, artist Chuck Sperry, and gallery owner Ken Harman at the booth of New York's Harmon Gallery at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo by Sarah Cascone.

Gallery director Raul Barquet, artist Chuck Sperry, and gallery owner Ken Harman at the booth of New York’s Harmon Gallery at the Seattle Art Fair. Photo: Sarah Cascone.

“I’m using oil-based inks with gold and silver metallics that I mix from powdered pigment, with colored glazes overlaying transparently,” Sperry told Artnet News. “I like to think that I’m elevating the concert poster to fine art. And it’s very gratifying when the fans of my older work get turned on to what I’m doing now.”

Brice Bielaski of Auburn, Washington, got to the fair at 4 p.m. and was still waiting for his turn to make a purchase four hours later. “I’ll be happy with anything they have left,” he told Artnet News. ” All of Chuck’s work is very collectible.”

“We have more,” gallery director Raul Barquet assured Artnet News. “We were expecting this!”

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Group sues after Indigenous artist’s designs ‘taken,’ sold in gift shop

By in Native

Group sues after Indigenous artist’s designs ‘taken,’ sold in gift shop

Native Northwest, an Indigenous wholesaler, has filed a lawsuit against Bruce and Fiona Fearon of Sasquatch Gifts & Souvenirs in Harrison Hot Springs, B.C., for “copying, using, and selling” Francis Horne Sr.’s Sasquatch design without permission.

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On a trip to Harrison Hot Springs in the summer of 2022, Horne visited Sasquatch Gifts & Souvenirs.

“As soon as we stepped in the door, lo and behold, there’s my design, or what appeared to be my design,” he said in a video prepared by Native Northwest.

“I took a closer look and realized that’s not my design. I couldn’t eat after that, it literally made me sick to my stomach…. You’re mortified, you think, ‘Why would they steal this? Why would they steal my design?’”

Gabe Garfinkel, general manager of Native Northwest said, they immediately began working to have the copies removed and rectify the situation.

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When Global News called Sasquatch Gifts & Souvenirs, a woman answered, refusing to give her name, but said she was the new owner who purchased the business in November of 2022.

They decided to keep the store name and were surprised when letters began arriving.

“This is not fair for our business…. It has really hurt our business,” she said. “Bruce and Fiona are previous owners, we are not connected to them, we are brand new.”

When asked whether the T-shirts were still being sold, the woman said, “We don’t sell these T-shirts anymore, come down and take a look.”

Global News has tried to contact Bruce and Fiona but has so far not received a response.


Francis Horne Sr. designed the Sasquatch displayed on this T-shirt.

Native Northwest

Indigenous art is increasingly being copied, reproduced or stolen. Earlier this year, charges were laid in an alleged art fraud ring against a group accused of making and selling pieces of art under the name of Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau.

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“Every day, Indigenous artists find their original art taken without permission and used on fake carvings, prints, T-shirts and logos,” Garfinkel said. “Authentic Indigenous art holds immense cultural significance to artists and their communities yet there are no Canadian laws that recognize this cultural value or restrict forgeries and fakes past general copyright law.”

One hundred per cent of the art featured on Native Northwest products is designed by Indigenous artists and Garfinkel said they are committed to maintaining the integrity of Indigenous art.

“We are taking legal action, because of the lack of meaningful response and that there are no Canadian laws in place to stop the theft or forging of Indigenous art,” he said. “We hope that talking about this more will deter others from Indigenous art theft.”

A lot of this theft can be found in gift shops, and an investigation done by journalist Francesca Fionda in Vancouver found that only 25 per cent of the tourist gift shops they looked at in Gastown, Chinatown, on Robson Street and on Granville Island exclusively sold authentic items.


Click to play video: '8 charged in suspected Norval Morisseau art fraud ring'

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8 charged in suspected Norval Morisseau art fraud ring


“It sends a message to all Native Northwest Coast artists that we need to stand up for ourselves. We have to protect what’s rightfully ours,” Horne said.

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“It’s plagiarism, plain and simple, and it’s a mockery of what we do as artists … to know that people are taking that and making money from something that they have no right to put a claim to.”

Theft of Indigenous art is something that has long plagued Indigenous people and the Indigenous economy. And there are groups dedicated to exposing and raising awareness of Indigenous art theft.

In a Facebook group called Fraudulent Native Art Exposed there are daily posts detailing work that has been copied and stolen, whether it’s appearing in gift shops, on Etsy or through various online wholesalers.

For many Indigenous artists, fighting back against theft can be too costly and all they can do is call it out. Native Northwest hopes their case sets a precedent and helps stop this theft from happening.


Click to play video: 'Indigenous artist explains best practices when buying their work'

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Indigenous artist explains best practices when buying their work


“Not only does fraudulent Indigenous art have a direct financial impact on artists who are not compensated for their designs, it also undermines and neglects the spiritual and cultural significance of each brush stroke and each design,” said Garfinkel.

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Everyone can help, especially when shopping.

“The first thing people can do is check that the design is attributed to or signed by an Indigenous artist,” said Garfinkel.

“If there is no artist name connected to the art, it’s more often than not a fake.”

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Capture your entry for the 2024 Garden & Landscape Expo photography competition and view galleries of past winners!

By in Photography

Capture your entry for the 2024 Garden & Landscape Expo photography competition and view galleries of past winners!

July 28, 2023 Ian Lewitz Leave a Comment

Each year, the Garden & Landscape Expo photography competition exhibits the work of amateur photographers from Wisconsin to nearly 15,000 Expo goers.

Didn’t get a chance to see the gallery in person? No problem! Explore a collection of stunning winners from this year’s competition below and in the online gallery. Featured above is the winner of the 2023 Viewers Choice award, Gray Tree Frog and Zinnia by Angela Karl from Colfax, Wisconsin.

Interested in participating in the 2024 photo competition? With summer in full swing, now is the perfect time to get outside and capture an entry for next year’s Expo! Learn more about the 2024 competition and submit your entry.

Monarch butterfly perched on a clover.

Magnificent Monarch | Photo by Rachael Sowinski from Two Rivers, Wisconsin. First Place, 2023 Novice Eye.

Close up photo of sunflower.

You Are My Sunshine | Photo by Lauretta Loesch from Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Third Place, 2023 Plants and Flowers.

Bleeding Hearts flowers in a group of ferns.

Bleeding Hearts in the Ferns | Photo by Michael Anderson from Madison, Wisconsin. First Place, 2023 Plants and Flowers.

Hummingbird flying in front of a flower.

Fluttering Jewel | Photo by Kim Hiller from Watertown, Wisconsin. Second Place, 2023 Macro.

Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Asche Davis, beloved artist, commemorated in summer Gallery Crawl

By in Native

Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Asche Davis, beloved artist, commemorated in summer Gallery Crawl

Art galleries across Pittsburgh’s Cultural District will welcome hundreds of visitors on Friday, July 28th for this summer’s Gallery Crawl. The lineup includes live music, poetry readings and a commemoration of the late artist Elizabeth “Betty” Asche Douglas.

Elizabeth Betty Asche Douglas Facebook page

Elizabeth “Betty” Asche Douglas – Artist, Vocalist, and Educator

She died earlier this month in her native Rochester Township at age 92. Douglas was the first Black student to enroll in the art department at the Carnegie Institute of Technology ( Carnegie Mellon today). She went on to become an accomplished visual artist, educator and jazz vocalist. She once described her work as expressing various levels and elements of being alive.

Tina Williams Brewer, a Fiber Art storyteller, and teacher at the Pittsburgh Center for Arts and Media, spoke to 90.5 WESA’s Priyanka Tewari about her connection to Elizabeth “Betty” Douglas.

Tewari: Thank you for being here.

Brewer: Thank you for asking me. This is quite an honor to be able to speak about Betty. She was a magnificent human being. She had a genuineness about her, and a truth telling about her. And I could feel that she was the kind of person that I wanted to emulate. And I asked her right off, I said, you know, I would love to grow up to be just like Betty Douglas.

Betty actually grew up in Rochester in the 1930s and 40s Do you think that some of her artwork reflected her upbringing or where she grew up?

I think that she had adversity, just like I had adversity because of the time. I came to Pittsburgh in the early 70s and I had a very similar kind of interaction with the energy here, just the struggle of being an African-American woman. Our rights were not handed to us, so there was a struggle. But there was also a persistence to define yourself, your identity, and to stick with it. And that’s what I saw with Betty, because she was always looking for the next option to be able to rise. And she was rising every single day.

Betty Douglas actually taught at Geneva College where she developed a humanities program that drew from Art, Literature, and music. As an educator yourself, how do those disciplines actually work together?

Black Artist, Female artist, Pittsburgh Artist, Fiber Arts creator

Frank Walsh

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tinawilliamsbrewer.com

Tina Williams Brewer – Fiber Arts storyteller and Educator

That is African sensibilities. Things are holistic. The visual is influenced by music, dance, poetry. All of those things can be seen in her work, as well as mine. Her work was a little more straightforward than mine. Mine is multiple layers of information, but it is very holistic because it it is influenced by music. And so her work also had a kind of a cutting edge to it where you could see the technology and her advancement in that. But it always was kind of framed with that African sensibility that was there.

Is that something that you teach your students as well?

Absolutely. I mean, because when I work with students, my purpose is to get them involved with the process. Sometimes it’s just the mind and the hands working together, whether it’s painters sculpting, or whatever. It is a prayer. The artwork is the prayer that you connect with the creator. And so I really feel like that was like Betty did, because Betty was vital and authentic. Very much to the end. And we will miss her.

Associated Artists of Pittsburgh

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https://www.aapgh.org/featured-artist/2021/7/1/tina-williams-brewer-july-2021

“Out of Trouble Waters Comes Bliss” by Tina Williams Brewer

Well, here’s to keeping our authentic selves alive in whatever shape or form. Thank you so much, Tina, for taking the time to join me today.

Thank you so much for having me. It was wonderful to remember Betty.

Tina Williams Brewer’s work “Out of Troubled Waters Comes Bliss” is on display at the 707 Penn Gallery in the Cultural District.

Product photography and the AI angle

By in Photography

Product photography and the AI angle
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Product photography, the art of capturing pictures of commercial products, is collaborating with varied dimensions of digital art like 3D rendering and artificial intelligence (AI) softwares. These include Midjourney, Dall-E, and Stability Diffusion.

The results have been produced by a good mix of ideation and swift AI work. Not only time and money but also infinite creative freedom help create inspirational images. “If time and budget are constraints for a professional shoot, then Midjourney is my hero,” says Rajiv Mathew Cherian, a photographer who leads the video department at Bengaluru-based Basil Global. 

With AI getting better with each prompt, brands like Casablanca Paris, Prada Beauty, and Cadbury are incorporating it into their marketing imagery.

Role of 3D

Product photography is dabbling with 360-degree rotatable images rendered on computer softwares like Blender, and Autodesk 3ds Max. E-commerce companies are using these product shots to provide consumers with an exploded-view and all-around view on digital screens.

Harshit Kapoor, a 3D artist with Amazon, says, “3D rendering offers unlimited creative freedom by allowing you to experiment with product presentation and is inexpensive. Besides, e-commerce firms need consistency across multiple product photos. For example, if we render a room according to a brand’s aesthetic, the bed used can be swapped with a 100 different beds. This helps with uniformity.”

Additionally, Harshit states that 3D rendering is often used when the product needs to be highlighted as it allows consumers to envision their product in virtual spaces using AR and VR equipment.  

However, it is important to realise that every product requires a different presentation technique and too much uniformity can become monotonous and boring. 

New trends

Remember when Adobe Photoshop had basic AI-integrated editing tools that cloned the sky or cleaned up the background? With Generative AI, these features are elevated, where the program generates text, images, or other media through prompts. These can help quicken workflow and help deliver quality work under deadlines.  

When the first camera entered the market in 1888, artists felt threatened by its presence. Eventually, both genres found their sacred space in the industry.

According to freelance product stylist and photographer Snehal Kanodia, “Photographers and artists will need to adapt to the new, different medium. Currently, we can start exploring and creating our recce using AI platforms or make mood boards using Midjourney.” She explained that most photoshoots are planned on a tight timeline, sometimes in a few days, and designers either refer to pictures from Pinterest or similar spaces to explain their concepts to the client. Now, the latest softwares are allowing photographers to create more specific images and better mood boards.

Integration of AI into product photography has stirred a rise in trends. Blended photography, pictures showcasing a photographer’s work with AI edits, is evolving.

According to Amith Nag, a techie at an MNC and a passionate photographer, “Integration of these elements have given rise to the trend, where you upload your photograph and the program generates a video clip of your picture with added AI elements and graphics. Another trend is using AI to create landscapes that can be used as a background for other images.”

Further, in the case of green screens, instead of purchasing images from stock websites and replacing the screen, you can generate specific background images yourself, he adds.

Evolving from experience is considered a human affair. Lately, AI has also learnt to grow from its experience.

Rajiv elucidates, “The progress in each version of the apps is commendable. People’s faces, smiles, ethnicities (which was necessary because brands wanted people of colour and stock websites had limited options), and importantly, the fingers are rendered well now. You can ask for an image of a doctor holding a scalpel and it generates a picture of a doctor’s hand holding a scalpel in great detail.” 

Rajiv also mentioned that the beta version of Photoshop is a game-changer for product photography.  

AI in daily lives

Adding AI into everyday chores can prove to be helpful. Photoshopping flowers into the background of a picture can happen in a single prompt. Rajiv shared that his mother “wanted to paint the Taj Mahal in Van Gogh style”, and Midjourney helped her with inspirational references. 

Still a threat?

Although AI is capable of generating quality content it lacks consistency. The outputs are non-uniform and, in the end, you need a photographer and an art director. According to Rajiv, “When I work on Midjourney, I mention technical details like a Nikon mirrorless camera with a particular Aperture value. These technical details give you more control, which will help generate the perfect image. Consistency is the biggest problem. AI works great for a single advertisement. But it is inconsistent with a full-fledged campaign with multiple shots.” 

Even for 3D rendering, “we work with an art director who has an understanding of photography, to ensure that the concepts still carry value but the image is rendered”, says Harshit. AI may have a flair for seamless execution but conceptualisation, technical skill, and photography are human chores.

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By in Photography

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Odds are if you have been on a road trip recently, you’ve seen signs for Buc-ee’s. People love this mega gas station for its food options, souvenirs of all kinds, home decor and, as advertised, very clean restrooms.

What is your favorite part about Buc-ee’s? Vote for one of our options below or comment below with your own!

You voted:

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