This has been a pretty spectacular year for amazing sights in the skies. Our Mountain Lake PBS Summer Intern Christian Gratto introduces us to a photographer from the Adirondacks who made a pilgrimage to Canada and Northern Quebec to get an up-close look at last month’s incredible display of the Northern Lights.

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It wasn’t too long ago that we saw Boris Eldagsen’s AI image win a traditional photography competition in a statement highlighting the implications of AI, and it has just happened again, however this time, in reverse!

Photographer Miles Astray won both the People’s Vote and a jury award in the AI category of The 1839 Awards with a fantastic image of a seemingly headless Flamingo titled ‘F L A M I N G O N E’. The plot twist is, that it was a real photograph!

Instead of using an AI generator, Astray used the trusty Nikon D750 DSLR to capture a surreal moment while on vacation in Aruba, which depicted a flamingo mid-belly scratch.

The 1839 Awards is a prestigious photography competition with a whos who of judges on the panel including art directors and editors from The New York Times, Phaidon Press, and Getty Images to name just a few.  

Upon winning the award photographer Astray revealed the true nature of the image shocking the jury and the public in equal measure. So what was the purpose of this ruse?

In a blog post on Miles Astray’s website, he states “With AI-generated content remodeling the digital landscape rapidly while sparking an ever-fiercer debate about its implications for the future of content and the creators behind it – from creatives like artists, journalists, and graphic designers to employees in all sorts of industries – I entered this actual photo into the AI category of 1839 Awards to prove that human-made content has not lost its relevance, that Mother Nature and her human interpreters can still beat the machine, and that creativity and emotion are more than just a string of digits”.

Astray admits to having ethical concerns about leading the jury and the voting public awry however chose to submit the image as a “jab at AI and its ethical implications”, and hoped they too would also see it this way – and perhaps surprisingly, they did!

After revealing the truth about the image, ‘F L A M I N G O N E’ was of course disqualified, however, Astray received an email from Lily Fierman, Co-Founder and Director of 1839 Awards. In it, she remarked that it served as a powerful message and an important and timely statement. She added, “We hope this will bring awareness (and a message of hope) to many photographers worried about AI”. 

There is no question that we as an industry and as people are all coming to grips with the real-world implications of AI, and this kind of statement serves as a reminder to be cautious but also as a reminder that humans are pretty remarkable without AI assistance!

If there is one thing photography embodies, it is the ability of any person to capture a piece of time. Photos hold memories, and what cannot be saved perfectly by the mind is preserved forever with one click of the camera.

Every year, the Manchester Arts FOCUS Photography Contest and Exhibition provides an opportunity for local photographers to showcase their memorable captures. The open-theme competition is judged for top finishers in five different age groups. 

With the winners recently announced, the city hosts an exhibition through July 8 in Schroeder Park, 359 Old Meramec Station Road, where one photo entry from each participant will be displayed. Community members may visit the exhibit from sunrise to sunset each day. A reception event will be held for photographers from 6-8 p.m. on June 21 in the park, offering an additional opportunity for community guests to meet with creators and discuss their photography.

Judges evaluated photographs based on the strength of each photo’s subject and message, creativity, originality and overall excellence. Former FOCUS Photography Best in Show winner and experienced photographer Allen Ahner joined the evaluation panel in 2024 as a guest judge. 

“Each judge has elements that appeal to them more than others,” Ahner said. “I look for impact. Images submitted for the competition (have) about three seconds to catch the judges’ attention in a (large) competition, (so they) must have an immediate impact. A good photographer uses the tools available to deliver that effect for a given situation.”

The overall contest prize, titled the Best in Show, embodies the values of such an impact. This year, hobbyist photographer Joel Christopher Wheeler captured the sensation in “The Oncoming Storm,” a memory of his travels across the North Atlantic. The photo depicts an old boat crushed up against an embankment in the waters of Seydisfjordur, Iceland. 

“To get the shot, I had to climb over like a rock as the locals were watching me,” Wheeler said. “They probably expected me to fall or drop the camera, but I got across and took stock of the image and was really happy with it. I didn’t have to do any additional exposure tricks; it was just that good of a weather front.

“As I finished that picture and climbed back over the rocks, it started to pour down rain, leading to the title of ‘The Oncoming Storm.’”

Participating in hobbyist photography since high school, Wheeler grew an inclination towards natural, landscape images. 

“Having traveled in the North Atlantic and seeing how dynamic and changeable it is, I took (the photo) to show the power of nature in the storms,” Wheeler said. “To see this boat that, at one point, was someone’s livelihood, crushed up against the bank with the storm oncoming, shows that weather can cause havoc on these folks at any point. Nature (is) a force that we contend with, but sometimes it still wins.”

Lucy Mertz, 21-49 age group winner, found similar inspiration to Wheeler in the abandonment of historical structures. Her photo “And Then Thou Shalt Have Good Success” emphasizes a contrast of light in the remains of an abandoned church in the Midwest. 

The photo illuminates the surviving letters of the quote “And Then Thou Shalt Have Good Success” in bright yellow across the balcony. The message, though circumstantial in finding, aligned with Mertz’ personal affairs. 

“Sometimes the world works in weird ways of the universe trying to tell you something” Mertz said. “The light shining on this quote came at a good point in my life where I needed that message to relay to me that I’m on the right path.”

Though finding the picture-perfect moment was fortunate, Mertz’ intention behind the photo was specifically to honor abandoned history.  

“I like to document things that aren’t normally seen by people,” Mertz said. “Capturing a moment, a feeling, and then getting that same feeling again from looking at a photo is a special thing.”

Photographer Karen Jenkins didn’t stumble upon her winning photo’s subject in the wild like Mertz and Wheeler. Instead, her technical skill created a similar, capturable memory. The 50-64 age group entry, titled “Painted Tulip,” focuses on a double tulip surrounded by water droplets and fog.

“I take paint or dye and drop it in water, and it slowly falls and creates these beautiful images,” Jenkins said. “To get the bubbles on the flowers, I use the sprayer hose from my sink.”

Jenkins’ unique strategy of capturing manipulated action still stems from an intended goal of preserving memories. 

“It’s so beautiful to see print and paintings preserve what we have,” Jenkins said. “I just wish cameras could see how the human eye sees. Sometimes, you see a beautiful sunset, and it’s very hard to get it to look exactly the way it was. I always want [the photo] to be what I saw, as natural as possible, to preserve the life of the moment.”

The memorable preservation of life in each FOCUS Photography Exhibition piece provides a valuable opportunity to share pieces of time with the Manchester community.  

“I enjoy the company of other photographers. As an artist, any of the arts bring us together to learn and grow. We may gather in the same place, but once we start shooting, we’re totally immersed in our images,” Ahner said. 

Additional age group winners include Alwin Yu in the 5-13 age category for the photo “The World of Galaxies” and Austin Scott in the 14-20 age category for “When Life Gives You Lemons.” Barbara C. Phillips earned first place in the 65+ age category for the photo “Summer Solstice” as well. 

To view the winning photographs and further photo entries, stop by Schroeder Park to stroll through the FOCUS Photography exhibit.

As AI-generated images have begun creeping into art and photography contests over the past two years, sometimes fooling jurors and provoking anxiety and anger among artists, the photographer Miles Astray decided it was time to turn the tides. In an AI category at the 1839 Awards’ Color Photography Contest, judged by industry leaders at Christie’s, Phaidon and the Centre Pompidou, Astray pulled off an act of feathery subterfuge, sneaking in an entry of a real photo of a flamingo he took while in Aruba.

Like AI images, which can bear hallmark signs of wonky anatomy, like too many teeth or fingers, the flamingo appeared headless as it bent its neck to scratch itself with its beak.

To Astray’s surprise, it won both third place in the category — and the People’s Vote award.

“To see it get shortlisted by the jury was a surprise in that it’s always a bit of a lottery in such big contest. There are just so many excellent pictures competing,” Astray told CNN over email. “After it got shortlisted… I thought I might really have a shot and started campaigning for people’s votes, but I had absolutely no idea how far or close I was to winning until the announcement.”

After the winners were revealed, the photographer notified the organization that runs the 1839 Awards, Creative Resource Collective, and took to social media to reveal his trickery.

“I entered this actual photo into the AI category of 1839 Awards to prove that human-made content has not lost its relevance, that Mother Nature and her human interpreters can still beat the machine, and that creativity and emotion are more than just a string of digits,” Astray wrote. “There were ethical concerns, of course, so I was hoping that the jury and the audience would find that this jab at AI and its ethical implications outweighs the ethical implications of deceiving the viewer, which, of course, is ironic because that is what AI does.”

Astray was subsequently disqualified from the competition, with the director of Creative Resource Collective, Lily Fierman, explaining in a statement to CNN that “each category has distinct criteria that entrants’ images must meet… we don’t want to prevent other artists from their shot at winning in the AI category.”

Fierman said there’s “no hard feelings,” and that their team plans to work with Astray to publish a conversation around the state of AI-generated images, using his entry as a “jumping-off point.”

“We hope this will raise awareness (and send a message of hope) to other photographers who are worried about AI,” she added.

Creative Resource Collective did not comment on how their AI and non-AI photography categories are judged and vetted.

As for the flamingo, Astray emphasized it was a serendipitous moment, not one that he sought out.

“I was not actively looking for a picture that would work for this stunt,” he explained to CNN. “Rather, the idea had been roaming in some remote corner of my mind, more subconsciously than consciously I think, and when I saw this picture, it surfaced. It is simply the perfect shot for this because the scene is so unreal and for such a simple, natural reason: a flamingo scratching its belly.”