Back to the balmy days of 2022. If my memory serves me well I believe that COVID was still a real big thing – my brush with it, that I know of, didn’t happen for another few months. However, we were entering the death spiral days of the Johnson premiership. Anyway, we must have been let out as I visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to see an exhibition of Robert Indiana’s work.

A lot has changed in the time that has passed and hopefully many more things will change for the better in the future under Sir Keir Starmer – we don’t know but we have to live in hope otherwise what is the point! A perhaps a more relevant change is the use of AI. Back in 2022 it was still some strange thing of the future – now it is becoming harder and harder not have one’s life brushed by AI. The second image, for example, has used AI to remove an unwanted detail. I could have spent ages cloning it out of the image but instead I used Generative Fill and within a minute the process was completed.

Is this an honest photography? No if your view is that photographs are a truthful record of events. However, anyone who has the most rudimentary grasp of the history of photography will know that will know that photographs have always been edited and improved. Perhaps if you claim that the work is a genuine record then that is different. I have never made such claims. My photographic images are created by me using the latest photo editing software and my accumulated skills. The full RAW image is shown below:

You can decide.