I’d like to share some thoughts I have on my craft, in a time when it has never been an easier to be a photographer.
I’m not rejecting AI — I’m choosing authorship.
The tech at our fingertips right now is literally insane, our cameras can now recognize faces, predict exposure, smooth skin, enhance skies, and correct mistakes before we even realize we’ve made them. Our editing software can cull an entire wedding shoot in minutes, suggest adjustments, generate looks, and optimize images in seconds. But personally, I still choose to do much of it myself. Not because I feel technology is the enemy—but because photography, for me, has always been a craft that requires growth, it’s about decision-making.
I dare you to turn off the “smart” features.
I choose to turn off most of the smart or AI-driven features on my camera.
Not as a statement. Not out of nostalgia. I do it to stay present. When nothing is automatic, I feel the need to slow down and really look, at how the light falls, how shadows behave, how a moment feels just before it disappears. This way, more of my frames become a choice instead of a suggestion. Every final frame needs intention. It’s slower, yes. But it’s also quieter. And in that quiet, I feel less pressure, I notice more, and have less noise to filter through when curating the final selection. I encourage everyone to take a break from the automation, spend a week or 2 with minimal smart camera settings, avoid using purchased or acquired image presets, cull your session with your own eyes, and finish your deliverables with your own intent. Just see how it feels.
In practice.
As a dance competition photographer, we’re often encouraged to turn off nearly every “smart” feature in the camera. Auto ISO, exposure compensation, subject tracking — most of it introduces unpredictability in fast, chaotic environments. The one exception is facial recognition. Not because it makes decisions for me, but because it supports the decision I’ve already made: who the image is about. Everything else, timing, framing, exposure, intent — remains my responsibility. For me, that distinction becomes clearest in the work I do most often.
The first decision.
AI culling tools seem to be becoming one of the more popular tools used in today’s digital photography world. They are often presented as harmless efficiency gains, or a way to save time after the work is done. But culling isn’t just housekeeping for me. It’s the first editorial decision in the entire process. When software decides which images are sharp enough, expressive enough, or “worth keeping,” it’s already shaping the story before I’ve had a chance to engage with it. Speed and efficiency are both definitely appealing, but the cost is subtle: fewer moments to notice, fewer near-misses to reconsider, fewer surprises that only make sense after sitting with the work. If I were to use an AI culling tool, I would only feel the need to go back in and see what it removed, due to the fear of losing a priceless moment. So from my own perspective, it would already be a wasted resource.
20 years of intuition.
After almost 20 years behind a camera professionally, I’m certain intuition has become one of my most trusted tools. And it didn’t come from presets or AI updates. It came from missed shots, wrong exposures, and moments where the image didn’t match what I felt. Over time, with these failures, I have taught my hands what to do before my mind catches up. I feel, at some point, photography stops being about rules and starts becoming about recognition—recognizing light, emotion, timing, and restraint. Intuition isn’t better than automation, it’s just earned differently, through, time, experience and error after error. The errors define the artist we will grow into.
Editing as interpretation, not correction.
The same philosophy carries into my post-production process. I use very minimal AI features in Photoshop. I create my own Lightroom presets, carefully, slowly— very often based on trying to bring a little of the environment my subject and I were in and how everything felt when I snapped the photograph. Maybe I’m not trying to make the image “perfect.” Maybe I’m trying to make it honest. Often for me, the editing process is not as much about fixing the picture. It’s about interpreting memory. The warmth or movement of the air. The weight of the light. The stillness or emotion in the moment. These are things no AI algorithm can remember for me. Perhaps for me, AI can easily optimize an image. But it can’t recall why I pressed the shutter.
Why does this even matter?
This isn’t about a Gen X photographer getting scared, or rejecting progress and advances in technology. I’m definitely grateful for the tools we have today, and I do use them when they serve the work. But I’m definitely confidant there’s so much value in staying connected to the craft—to keeping our fingerprints on the process and the final product. In a world that encourages speed, automation, and perfection, choosing intention, to me feels quietly radical. It reminds me why I fell in love with photography in the first place—not for efficiency, but for awareness, and I’ll die on this hill.
Just maybe, sometimes the most meaningful choice we can make as creatives is deciding where not to automate.
I just have one question.
As technology continues to evolve, it’s worth asking whether we’re creating images more efficiently, or more intentionally. For me, the answer still lives in the decisions — the ones made in an instant by hand, by eye, and by feeling. As automation expands, the question that concerns me most is….
Who decides?
Thank you for taking the time to read along 🙂