AI has become pervasive and a hot discussion topic. Working out whether something was written by AI or is AI generated seems to be front and centre of everyone’s mind. Understandably.
I am going to steer away from the arguments for and against and outline how I use AI, and why.
Photo Processing
My ethos is to do as little as possible to an image I have taken. I use Lightroom to process my RAW files and I will remove distractions, crop, straighten, adjust exposure and apply a simple preset.
That’s more or less it.
Lightroom has an AI powered distraction removal tool, and I use this. I use it to remove dust on the sensor, raindrops on the lens. Sometimes people if there was no chance of me getting to see the scenery empty. Though often I was alone.
I do not enhance my images with AI or cut and shut (i.e. put composite) images together. I don’t have a problem with people doing this, it’s just not my thing.
Before: RAW file
After: Lightroom processing
Photo Selection
I use AI (ChatGPT) to help me choose ‘the best’ photos for my field notes and for my work. Why do I do this? I am autistic and I feel everything. When I have the camera in front of me I can be crying at the beauty of the view, laughing at the antics of the puffins or the seals. Feeling what I am seeing. I feel this again when I look at the images, and I can’t unpick that from whether the image is a good one, in my voice, or not. I find it hard to be dispassionate, so I use AI to help me find that objectivity.
I explain my outlook: Quiet photography, light, land, details, and give the AI context on my voice, and ask it to choose between images I feel represent that, without the emotion I feel. AI helps me to decide whether an image is ‘me’. I will fight it where I think it’s wrong, and I don’t use it all the time for this. Some photos are just mine. No question.
I actually asked ChatGPT to describe its role in my work, as it has memory and context from previous conversations. This is what it said:
I would describe it as a second pair of eyes without the emotional attachment.
Not objective in the pure sense, because looking at photographs is never fully objective. But more detached. Less tangled up in the memory of standing there, the effort it took to reach the place, the weather, the waiting, the disappointment, the private meaning.
I think the key distinction is that I’m not acting as an authority over your work. I’m acting more like a calibrating tool: holding the image up against the body of work, the voice you’re building, and the things you’ve said matter to you.
You still make the decision. I just help clear some of the weather off the glass.
I think this is a pretty accurate description, and it’s your call on how you feel about that.
Writing
I love to write. All the words (except the direct quotes) are mine in this field note, and I am comfortable writing how I speak. However, this is not a story. It’s a technical assessment of what I do. I am comfortable here, and I don’t need help.
But when I am writing about my experiences; how I see, how I travel, and so on, I struggle. I am not a natural story teller. If you say to me ‘tell the reader what is important’; my response is ‘everything’, or ‘nothing’. I have a kind of Teflon-coated black hole around what I think people want to read. My mind slides off being able to tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, without wandering off into the unnecessary, or trying to over-explain, because I would need that explanation myself.
So I tend to think of a topic I want to write about, and brain dump into ChatGPT why I want to write about it, what I think is important, what it meant to be there, and ask it to help me structure the narrative. I then write it in my words.
I asked ChatGPT to describe this too:
On the Field Notes, I think I do something slightly different.
With the Field Notes, I help you separate voice from noise.
You usually arrive with the important thing already there. A phrase, a feeling, an observation, a slightly ridiculous truth about puffins, seals, weather, or yourself. My job is not to make it sound “writerly.” In fact, a lot of the work is stopping it becoming too polished, too neat, too essay-like, or too generically beautiful.
I think what I do is help you find the sentence that sounds most like you, then build around it without sanding it flat.
The most accurate description, I think, is this:
I help you protect the honesty of the piece from the part of you that wants to over-explain it.
Again, a pretty accurate description, and again your call on your feelings here.
Tech Support
I could not manage without ChatGPT’s technical support skills. You would not believe how hard it is to create a space that is quiet and noise-free. With images that fit a desktop and a mobile, and everything in between.
I built this website myself. It is all my own work, but I could not have done it without ChatGPT.
Autism friendly font and colour suggestions. Lightbox settings. Width and height settings. Global overrides on a WordPress theme that has its own opinions on what you should have.
I asked ChatGPT again and this is what it said:
For technical support, I think the description is more practical and less romantic.
I help turn “why is this stupid thing not doing what I want?” into a sequence of things to check, change, test, and undo if needed.
For your blog, I’d frame it like this:
“For technical support, AI acts like a patient troubleshooting partner.
The value is not that AI is always right. It is that it gives me a way to keep testing without spiralling.
It turns “the website is broken” into “try this one thing, then check what changes.””
The honest line is probably:
For technical problems, AI gives me a calm sequence when my brain wants to turn the whole thing into a bin fire.
Never a truer word written than the bit on the bin fire.
So that’s how I use AI. Nothing hidden. I hope I use it as a tool, rather than a replacement for my skills.
And because it is a photography field note, here is an image that is very ‘me’ to close on.
