Fine-art photography is something more than regular photo-effort, and is a genre that is highly developed in this country. In the last 100 years Sakartvelo has given the world tens of names in the field that have gone down in the history with the mark of their genuine professionalism, and Yuri Mechitov is one of them, whose black-and-white portraits were recently on display at the exhibition hall of the Georgian Academy of Arts, a magical show of old and new works preserved in his vast portfolio. Literally each portrait of that impressive indoor vernissage is marked with the photographer’s individual aesthetic quality and imaginative faculty, each piece going beyond plain camera mastery to perpetuate the captured image in the mind of the spectator with incisive sharpness. Mechitov talks to us through those images, as if he is rewriting human history in painfully memorable facial expressions to forever leave an indelible impression in the minds of those who found time to go to the event.

Yuri will be 75 next year. Oddly enough, he was trained as a mining engineer, but photo-art is what has infatuated his inquisitive personality beyond the imagination of anybody around him, including his family members. Little Yuri started shooting when he was hardly eight. He began exhibiting his photo-material as early as 1979, and today boasts having almost 100 authorized exhibitions under his belt. Mechitov’s artistic biography accounts for several documentaries and roles in some feature films. He was lucky enough to have worked with Sergei Parajanov, an outstanding film director of soviet times. He has written books and lectured for university students, and even functioned as Deputy Minister of Culture of Georgia, but I am not surprised – after all, the great Goethe himself used to be a finance minister!

The latest exhibition we are talking about was opened in the presence of a huge crowd. The curiosity of further attendants lasted for about a fortnight, which is quite an indicator in today’s busy world. Among the photo-exhibits, there were many famous faces, thus building the amazingly vivid photo-annals of Sakartvelo. Some of the personalities reflected in Mechitov’s works are no longer among us, but the author has perpetuated their memorable images as if writing them in stone. Writes Maia Deisadze, who has specialized in interpreting, evaluating and promoting Mechitov’s prolific legacy: “Outstanding photo-artist, peerless portraitist, and not just that . . . my closest friend and guru; his art is versatile; he is our nation’s genuine chronicler; his love for fellow-humans knows no limits, and this is clearly felt in all his masterpieces.”

But nobody can be more precise than Mechitov himself in describing his creative sense: “I have tried a variety of photographic genres, and was not unsuccessful. And yet, the genre closest to me is portraiture. This is an image of a man/woman who, alone in the entire animal world, knows for sure that he/she is mortal. This knowledge is especially evident when photographing very old or terminally ill people who are already aware of their imminent end. They think, not without reason, that this may be their last photographic image.”

Yuri Mechitov is always in the public eye, and the public in his eye, never missing a chance to freeze in time and digitalize the most attractive and shocking moments of our lives, especially the faces of our compatriots, this, in most cases, happening accidentally; the creative grandmaster’s spontaneity always clear, present and poised. Incidentally, judging by his childlike nature, when I see him at work, I can’t help throwing my imagination back into his childhood, thinking that he is still there, only with a somewhat honed sense of picture and seriously matured possession of the camera’s technical eye. On top of all that, Yuri Mechitov is a well-known public figure who the people never desist to talk about because he is always deeply in the swim of the most important matters of society. Aren’t we all lucky to have around a man who can do both – comment on current events and reflect the self-same proceedings in his artistic photo escapades? What an enduring service to the country!

By Nugzar B. Ruhadze

Nature is the most beautiful ever-changing phenomenon, and many photographers try to capture its fleeting moments. To celebrate those artists, The German Society for Nature Photography (GDT) has announced their winning pictures of the year 2024.

Contestants were able to submit their work in the following seven categories: Birds, Mammals, Other Animals, Plants and Fungi, Landscapes, and Nature’s Studio. In this year’s competition, Dieter Damschen was nominated as the photographer of the year with the photo “Winter flood in a riparian forest”.

Down below we have shared other 21 winners from all the categories, and if you would like to see more photos, take a look here.

More info: gdtfoto.de | Instagram

After labeling photos with Generative Fill as AI, Instagram has gone even further. It’s now labeling real photos with its new tag “Made with AI,” and photographers are rightfully losing their minds over this.

I first noticed the issue brought up by Monika Rohfeld (Instagram | Facebook) in a Facebook group I follow. She took a photo of a man on Coney Island, an actual photo, with “nothing artificial about,” as she describes it. “Props are real, person is real, location is real,” Monika writes. She used an AD 300 Pro on full power to fill because her model was backlit on full power: and that’s all! “I did pull the contrast from the background and the usual D/B but that’s it,” she notes.

However, after posting the photo on Instagram, the social media labeled it “Made with AI.” How annoying is that?!

Commenting on Monika’s post, Kevin Patrick Robbins noted that “If you use ANY AI tools in your edit, such as Generative Fill or the remove brush, it gets tagged in the metadata and IG will flag it.” And the problem is – the new crop tool fills after straightening the image. “There was a tiny sliver in the corner that needed content aware fill,” Monika replied. “That is outrageous.”

This reminded me of the time when a photographer got banned from 500px for “posting non-photographic content,” because 500px apparently can’t tell between light painting and AI/composites. Speaking of light painting, I noticed another example of Instagram mislabeling images. Our buddy Eric Paré had the same situation as Monika, as one of his light-painting photos was automatically flagged as AI by Instagram. “It’s been posted in my stories and there was no option to disable this,” he writes on Instagram. “I tried with 3 images and got the same result.”

Getting around Instagram’s “Made with AI” label

Honestly, I find this super-annoying. Imagine investing your time, effort, money and whatnot to create the look and the result that you want. Then, removing a blemish or filling in a tiny corner of the photo – bam, your photo is flagged as AI, just like someone’s image created in 5 seconds by writing a prompt. It’s simply not fair, especially since all editing tools are constantly shoving AI up our noses.

I don’t see how and if Instagram can address this and tell AI images apart from real photos with slight AI-based editing. There are sometimes nuances between the two, and it can be hard to tell how much AI is too much AI – but it doesn’t make this issue less frustrating. Pratik Naik shares some tips on getting around this issue – at least until algorithms become more sophisticated if they ever do.

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Have you had a similar experience with your photos on Instagram? Do you have any idea how to overcome this?