10Kviews
27 People That Have Never Existed, Captured With AI By Dimitar Karanikolov In His Photography Series Imaginary Shamans
Interview With Artist
With AI on the rise, we see more and more artwork made with the help of description-based software. It is amazing what our words can create, and it is interesting to think that good writing someday might overcome photography. Obviously, you wouldn't be able to capture true moments that happened, but you can very well create images of events and people that have never existed.
Dimitar Karanikolov, an architect, who has gained a lot of attention through his photographs, has also released a series of photographic portraits of shamans and healers from different parts of the world called Imaginary Shamans. In this series, you will see realistic-looking images of people that are not real. As Dimitar described, this is "AI travel photography".
To understand more about what goes into a description to make such detailed imagery, Bored Panda got in touch with the author. See the interview below and let us know in the comments how these pictures make you feel, Pandas.
More info: Instagram | behance.net | twitter.com | foundation.app | Facebook
This post may include affiliate links.
Dimitar, being an architect, doesn’t let that title restrict him from other life passions. He shares what has inspired him to try and create with AI: “I’m an architect, but travel photography has been my passion for the past 8 years. I did numerous trips in order to explore and photograph authentic communities around the world: Mongolia, Ethiopia, Bolivia, Indonesia, etc.”
“I have always been fascinated by indigenous people and their culture, their rituals, and aesthetics. These are our ancestors, our roots. When AI software became wildly popular/open access several months ago, I naturally tried generating spaces and architectural details, but creating human faces and characters brings much more emotion and connection and does much more powerful visions. So I’ve decided to do some AI travel photography.”
To get such detailed, lively, and realistic-looking images, there had to be a very descriptive text for AI to analyze. Dimitri shared his creative process with software: “The new version of the Midjourney platform is easier to work with and much more realistic as a style (if that’s what you are after). All these portraits are generated based on descriptions with words only. In order to have a more controlled result, I was very specific and described a lot of the details I wished to see in the final image - the age, the clothes, the ethnicity, etc. I’ve also specified the camera settings, the 'virtual lens' I wish to use, the light scenario, and the framing. The more words - the better!”
AI is already here, and it is not going away. Therefore, we were interested to know what Dimitri thinks of this technology: “It is fascinating and scary at the same time. I understand why a lot of people feared this technology. I also work in the field of CG visualizations (www.meshroom.com), and we already lost a big project as the client decided to use AI instead of our services."
Dimitar continued on AI: "Still, I think it is an amazing tool that gives lots of people the opportunity to express themselves and visualize their ideas. Surely it will have a major impact on the photographic industry in the future. Soon, when we post a photo, we’ll have to specify whether it’s real or AI, as there will be no difference in the quality!”
"I'm an artist" and "I created this via AI" will never sit well with me. AI art kind of disgusts me at the moment since the programmers essentially stole the images the things was trained on without bothering to ask permission. It's really scummy. Sites like Deviantart and software like Clip Studio paint are under fire because they decided to just opt in all of their users in the AI they were generating. Clip Studio has apologised and removed the AI altogether and DA now auto opts out new art.
This, so much this. Plus, the "artist" doesn't do any art at all, they throw some buzzwords at the AI and publish the results. Much art, very work, so wow.
Load More Replies...
Sooooooooo, you just generated fake people using photos of real people that now will not get their names or faces recognized, seems like the last thing indigenous people need right now
That is the FIRST thing I thought! How incredibly disrespectful to indigenous peoples of the world to throw out “fake” and “made-up” versions of them that do NOT reflect the depth of their culture or traditions! Slap some face paint marking and feathers on a brown face - it’s a Native American!! Slap some scarification and paint on a black face - it’s a native African!! How shameful to do this and act like you did something amazing.
Load More Replies...
These are all incredible people, sure wish I knew the ACTUAL HUMAN BEINGS AND CULTURES THEY'RE ACTUALLY BASED ON.
"I'm an artist" and "I created this via AI" will never sit well with me. AI art kind of disgusts me at the moment since the programmers essentially stole the images the things was trained on without bothering to ask permission. It's really scummy. Sites like Deviantart and software like Clip Studio paint are under fire because they decided to just opt in all of their users in the AI they were generating. Clip Studio has apologised and removed the AI altogether and DA now auto opts out new art.
This, so much this. Plus, the "artist" doesn't do any art at all, they throw some buzzwords at the AI and publish the results. Much art, very work, so wow.
Load More Replies... Sooooooooo, you just generated fake people using photos of real people that now will not get their names or faces recognized, seems like the last thing indigenous people need right now
That is the FIRST thing I thought! How incredibly disrespectful to indigenous peoples of the world to throw out “fake” and “made-up” versions of them that do NOT reflect the depth of their culture or traditions! Slap some face paint marking and feathers on a brown face - it’s a Native American!! Slap some scarification and paint on a black face - it’s a native African!! How shameful to do this and act like you did something amazing.
Load More Replies... These are all incredible people, sure wish I knew the ACTUAL HUMAN BEINGS AND CULTURES THEY'RE ACTUALLY BASED ON.
