Authenticity in the Age of AI
Putting your work out there is essential. You have to be seen, recognized, and engaged. Public posting is no longer just about showcasing your work, it’s a requirement in an industry where visibility is currency. But what happens when that visibility becomes automated?
Lately, a shift has taken place. Many photographers have started relying on AI-generated or AI-assisted posts to present their work. The results are obvious, posts that sound perfect, structured, articulate, but strangely artificial. The words flow too smoothly, the engagement is polished to an unnatural degree, and the voice? It could belong to anyone.
AI isn’t the problem. It’s a tool. I use it myself to write, dictate, edit, revise. I delete, rewrite, add my own words to make it sound like me. It saves time. But I control it. I decide what stays, what goes, what it should never say. The problem is letting AI replace your voice. Because once you do, you sound like the bot you’re using.
There’s no danger in that, no real consequence. But it’s boring. It makes everything feel like noise. You scroll through posts, you read captions, and suddenly, everyone sounds like the same person. Something is off. This is where the misrepresentation of expertise begins, an illusion of authority that flourishes in an industry where the untrained eye fails to see the difference.
One of the trends I’ve seen on social media is photographers posting what they claim to be “expert insights” into hotel photography, for example. These posts break down the process of a project and how it should be prepared, what happens before, during, and after, what a photographer should do to create perfect images. But there’s one problem. These are not personal insights. These are briefs from the photography guidelines that every major hotel company gives to every photographer they work with. There is no secret formula. There is no exclusive knowledge. Every professional in the industry already follows these same rules, because they are not up for debate. They are the expectations set by the brands themselves.
But when a photographer presents these standards as their own, it creates an illusion. It makes it seem like they have cracked some undiscovered formula for success. That only they know how it’s done. That if a client wants the best hotel photography, they need to hire someone who has this “insider knowledge.” This is misleading and it’s frustrating, because it doesn’t elevate photography. It doesn’t encourage actual discussion or artistry. It turns the industry into a checklist rather than an artistic field.
