Ep10. Thomas Boenig: Will A.I. Kill Photography?

Thomas Boenig: I’d love to see people taking pictures in a few years, still not relying completely on artificial intelligence and their little prone boxes in whatever tool they’re using because it’s the whole process that makes photography so, so interesting. And it’s what kept me alive, for sure, all of these years, or kept me in the job with, you know, the people and all the effort that goes into creating photography.

I’d hate to see the craft slowly fade away and being replaced by computers, but AI will have so many positive impacts on our lives that, that’s also the question, if maybe we can sacrifice photography for the sake of humanity being able to cure cancer, I’m totally, totally fine with that, if that’s the result.

I think the only important thing is we have to be very realistic about AI right now being the reflection of human achievement. However, if humanity decides to only do what AI is perceiving as a good achievement, we’re gonna be in trouble.

Helen Todd: For German photographer Thomas Boenig, photography is a force that fuels his existence. Based in Nuremberg, Germany, Thomas is a freelance commercial and Leica street photographer. His clients range from Adidas, Puma, and Tesla to Universal Music. Thomas and I met back in 2012 in New York City when he was doing a project for Leica camera capturing decisive moments with his Leica M9.

What I really appreciate about Thomas is not only how talented he is, but how genuine and authentic he is, which comes through in his striking photography, especially his portraits. In our conversation today, we discuss how Thomas sees AI as a threat to the photography industry and how he’s thinking about AI tools for his client projects and workflows.

You’ll learn how skateboarding and his Leica Rangefinder helped shape his commercial photography, his appreciation for beautiful imperfections and why he loves the craft of photography so much, and his hopes for it in the years to come. Enjoy.
Theme: But have you ever thought, what if this is all just a dream?

Helen Todd: Welcome to Creativity Squared. Discover how creatives are collaborating with artificial intelligence in your inbox, on YouTube, and on your preferred podcast platform. Hi, I’m Helen Todd, your host, and I’m so excited to have you join the weekly conversations I’m having with amazing pioneers in this space.

The intention of these conversations is to ignite our collective imagination at the intersection of AI and creativity to envision a world where artists thrive.

Theme: Just, just a dream.

Helen Todd: Well, Thomas, it is so wonderful to see you and have you on Creativity Squared. Welcome.

Thomas Boenig: Thanks for having me. I’m really honored. Good to see you again.

Helen Todd: Yeah. Well, I was looking back, I think we actually met back in 2012 when you were doing Thomas Does NYC for the Leica Camera blog and Leica project.

So it’s been a long time, but it’s so good to have been connected with you and followed all of your work after all of these years.
Thomas Boenig: Yeah. I still, I think I still owe you a bit for taking me in during the project because I don’t know if you remember, but like the first day of arriving in New York, so it was my first time in the States and New York too. I think I had like, I crashed on somebody’s couch that, you know, I found on Craigslist and it was bad. So as far as I remember, yeah, so I
Helen Todd: I remember there was something about, like a lot of cats or something at the place. Yeah.

Thomas Boenig: It was the tiniest, it was like a two bedroom apartment with the kitchen in the hallway, my bunk bed in the hallway and what felt like 34 cats in the apartment.

And I’m very allergic to cats. And there were no cats mentioned in the Craigslist advertisement. So as far as I remember, I called you and we met up for dinner, and you kindly offered me to stay with you and crash on your couch and I was so relieved.

Honestly, thank you again. I owe you.

Helen Todd: You’re very welcome. Yeah, I am a big, well at, at one point in my life, I was a massive couch surfer, and for those who don’t know what couch surfing is, it was really an early community where people would connect online and open up their houses. This was before Airbnb, and let people from all over the world stay on their couch.

When I backpacked through Europe, I stayed on so many people’s couches. So, my couch is always open to visitors, and I’m glad I saved you from

Thomas Boenig: You did, you saved me and the project

Helen Todd: Well, let’s dive into kind of, we’ll get into your photography, but you know, out the gate, I think you were really interested in my podcast, a new project, Creativity Squared exploring how creatives are collaborating with artificial intelligence. And, one reason, because you’re a photographer and you’re interested in it, but tell me, tell me kind of how you’re thinking about AI right now at this moment in time.

Thomas Boenig: I think that that alone is a loaded question because it affects so much of the world we’re living in right now. I think it’s difficult to generalize AI as a whole because you can, there’s, there’s bits and pieces of life where AI is gonna, is gonna be great, and it’s gonna revolutionize things and make life better.

And then there’s always people that have, that are stakeholders in something that AI is a threat too. So that’s kind of like the bottom side of it. Me personally, I think I’m a little bit worried. In some parts I’m relieved in other parts because it also makes my life as a creative easier. And I’m excited about what’s down the line for us with AI.

Helen Todd: And when you said that you started playing with AI, you kind of went into it with a very specific intention, and what was that, that intention?

Thomas Boenig: Well, the first moment AI caught my attention was actually a Midjourney picture I saw on Instagram and it was, I can’t remember the name of the creator, but it was The Simpsons sort of created in a hyperrealistic way, like as if they were, you know, humans. And that caught my attention for two reasons. First of all, I love The Simpsons.

And second of all, if a client would’ve approached me with the idea to recreate the Simpsons as let’s say half realistic human people, the sheer amount of work that would’ve gone into that project is crazy: lighting backgrounds, special effects, makeup.
So that was kind of like the first moment where I, where I thought, oh my God, there is potential in this. Like this is, this is really great.

And I actually looked into Midjourney only because I figured this can’t be real. I actually wanted to, to rule it out as s a threat to the craft I’m a part of.

But I couldn’t. It’s a really extensive, powerful tool. And Midjourney then got me more into the areas of like ChatGPT and how, how to use AI for, you know, more business related things. And that’s actually where I am right now. So I, you know, I looked in there, I wanted to rule it out as, as a threat to my craft, but I couldn’t in the end.

Helen Todd: I find it really fascinating that you saw it and wanted to test it out to see what it means for your own photography as a threat or not.

And now that you’ve played with it a little bit, how are you using it for, or as part of your photography process right now? And I guess before we even start there, we should just give a little background that you’re both a commercial photographer and a street photographer, which we’ll get more into into your artwork in a second.

But just to stay on the AI train just a little bit longer.

Thomas Boenig: Well, I’m fortunate enough to have worked in a lot of areas in photography, commercially speaking. And the first thing that came to my mind with using Midjourney was creating background plates. I do have a little history with automotive photography and automotive photography is super complex.

It’s very hard to do. And the most difficult thing is, you know, getting the car to a location and, you know, basically waiting there for the sun to be at the exact right spot or a cloud to show up or, you know, whatever. It’s very time consuming. And over the past couple of years, a lot of, you know, 3D modeling has replaced the photography of the cars themselves, but photographers would still go out and shoot background plates, just the background plates to have the cars 3D modeled into it.

Well, now with Midjourney you can actually go the other way around. You could actually take a picture of a car and put it into the Midjourney background or rather first create the Midjourney background and then, you know, position the car to match the background. So that’s one area.

And the other area is for fashion photography where, you know, there’s a lot of traveling involved. And I’ve been all around the world, shooting fashion catalog, no Vogue covers, but you know, still catalog fashion and you know, there’s a lot of traveling involved. You’re still dependent on the weather and the location. So I think it could go really well for fashion photography.

Helen Todd: Yeah. And I guess maybe, you know, since there’s so many different types of genres of photography and they have different applications for AI, like I almost think like in the editorial sense, which is very, can go very fantasy or anything that you imagine that to bring down the cost of the shoots, that AI can be a huge benefit, versus, you know, building elaborate sets and all that goes into it.

And then, you know, it’s very different, than street photography of course. So, yeah, are you, you kind of mentioned two different examples, but do you see the benefits or the threats of using AI to apply for these different genres within the photography realm?
Thomas Boenig: Of course, I think it’s a threat to the way we’re working or used to work as photographers and for me, and that’s my fear.

The whole part of, you know, building a set, getting together with people, having to do troubleshooting as you go, dealing with time delays, bits and pieces of the set fall apart, whatever it is, that’s part of the game, that’s part of the experience that I love so much about photography because otherwise it would just be another job.

And also connecting with the people that are working on those kind of kinda jobs. I can, if I’m looking into the future, I hope we don’t get to the point where we don’t have any photo shootings more, anymore, but we’re rather having. Prompt sessions and some high class, makeup artist brings a little notebook with his favorite prompts, and then people are sitting in front of a computer telling each other what to type into a little box.

And of course you’re getting a result that’s probably as good, maybe even more technically speaking, more perfect than the one you took with your camera. But I mean, where is the fun in that? That’s not why I started.

Helen Todd: Mm, that’s interesting. So it’s almost the process versus the output, and how brands will start, or your clients will start to think about what it is that they want or, and how to support the industry is maybe a differentiator, do you think of it that way?

Thomas Boenig: I mean, budgetwise, it’s probably always smarter to hire somebody who does it with an AI tool. It’s just the question, if you still wanna be involved in the process and have this experience of photo shooting taking place and, you know, people buzzing around and pizza being delivered and, you know, that’s all part of the magic.

And again, it’s cheaper for a client to do it with AI, I suppose cause it’s just less people involved and just, you know, less hardware needed to pull off creating this picture. But it would break my heart if the whole production itself is disappearing.
Helen Todd: Yeah, and I think right now at least it seems like bigger brands aren’t going to embrace AI that much just because there’s so much litigation happening right now as far as like the rights usage of the images coming from these machines.

And that it seems like, just from my conversations, that AI used a little bit more upstream and the concepting and stuff makes a lot more sense until we actually understand the full brand usage rights when it comes to the end result and stuff.

But I’m sure that’s gonna change just as fast as, you know, the AI is moving. And I know one thing that we had kind of discussed when we were talking ahead of this interview, that, you know, for some brands like, you’re helping a friend out with a clothing brand, which I wanna hear about, but having, you know, not all clients have massive budgets to do production shoots, and this kind of opens up, you know, access to so much more ability for brands to do cool things without big budgets.

So it’s definitely maybe a double-edged sword, in that way. But can you tell us about the project that you’re working on and how you’ve started dabbling with AI for one of your projects?

Thomas Boenig: We, a friend of mine started, sort of street culture, skateboarding related clothing brand. And it’s really, it’s him and that’s it. He’s working on the designs. He’s traveling around finding factories to produce the clothing he wants to make it super sustainable and no cheap productions in somewhere in Asia.

So he’s really invested in creating a quality brand with quality clothing, which on the other hand means that you have to cut short on marketing budget. And he asked me to take pictures and we did sort of the first collection. In, as far as I remember, it was February, and I don’t know if the listeners have ever been to Germany in February, but I can assure you it’s not fun. Especially not when you are having to deal with a fashion shooting that has to take place outdoors.

And as far as I can see now, the next collection will be again available in February next year due to some delays, and we’re not planning to go outside and shoot in the rain one more time since a good part of the team and the models called in sick the next day. So, you gotta find a solution anyways.

And we decided to try and create set backdrops in Midjourney to implement real pictures of the clothing and the models into it. We did some tests so far and they’re not good enough to actually want me to show them to anyone, but, it’s such a good alternative to visualize what you’re, what you’re about to do and trying to do.

And, even though you know the client is a smart guy, trying to verbally explain what you’re about to do or what your plan is with, we’re digitally creating backdrops in AI, then we’re gonna take pictures in front of a gray backdrop, and then we’re gonna, you know, it sounds so techy and so weird.

And it’s a lot easier if you can just go up to a client with a picture at hand and say, this is what we’re about to do. This is roughly what it’s going to look like. What do you think of this? And by the way, we can replace the rain and gray in the background with a nice LA street kinda sunset, moody atmosphere picture if you want to.

Helen Todd: And one of our conversations,you know, when we were talking about how you’ve been playing with AI and, and how much, how deep you’ve kind of gone, you kind of communicated that you haven’t fully explored it. And can you kind of share why and expand and like share with our audience yeah. kind of your thought process of how, where you’re at with AI and playing with these tools?

Thomas Boenig: Well as I said in the beginning, or we talked about me trying to rule AI out as a threat, but then in the end I just couldn’t. Looking into Midjourney at a certain point, I just stopped doing it. And as the reason for it being that tt would be so painful finding out that what has been my, you know, life for the past 15 years, what I, what has made me ,you know, look into a bright future and what I’ve worked for so hard is now just not worth anything anymore because anybody can do it by typing a few words into a box and getting a great picture.

So that was, I think I put blinders on in a way because you don’t wanna give up anything that you’ve worked for just for the simplicity of that being another solution too.

Helen Todd: Thank you for sharing that. And, and I think that it’s just really touching hearing you say that. And at the same time, I will say that people and photographers can’t be replaced.

And like every photographer brings their own unique style and their whole experience and approach to their photography. And that’s not gonna get replaced by someone else prompting like your photography. And you can’t be replaced by someone else prompting into the computer.

My heart does break for the photography industry because it is going to evolve and change and you know, there’s gonna be growing pains with that, no matter how it changes, like it’s evolving, changing, and we’re all kind of in the middle of it right now and navigating it in different ways.

So it is kind of a bittersweet moment in that regard.

Thomas Boenig: Absolutely.

Helen Todd: Yeah. Because you mentioned that with the streetwear brand that LA would be a much cooler background setting. And again, travel for a small brand just adds up the production costs so much. Yeah. It just seems kind of like this bittersweet where there’s so many benefits to AI and you know, and the concepting and in the processes.

And, you know, I think what you said about, you know, being heartbroken if we, if people give up their cameras and to lose the craft of photography is something that’s very real.

There’s one photographer that a presentation I watched online a couple weeks ago in Cincinnati, and he gave up his camera equipment cuz he’s so excited just to play with AI art online. So I’ve already even heard of one person giving up their camera equipment and transitioning more as like an AI artist.

But I still think that that’s, you know, a different identity if you’re like, I’m an AI artist versus like a photographer that uses whether it’s Photoshop or one of these other AI tools in their production process. Do you kind of see the distinction that way too?
Thomas Boenig: It took me a while to identify as an artist myself, like that didn’t happen overnight.

I always felt more like I’m a service provider or a troubleshooter or, you know, a craftsman and then somewhere down the line and if there’s budget left, the artistry comes into play. And that’s kinda, you know, commercial photography approach to it because you have to, you know, solve a lot of problems before you actually start shooting.

And, you know, I think the identification comes from exactly that process that you have to put in so much work and also physical work and preparation to create high profile commercial jobs or, you know, even if it’s not commercially, if you, if you were really invested in your art photography, there’s a lot of effort going into this.

A lot of blood, sweat, and tears. Actually, that’s, it’s a blue collar job if you, if you wanna look at it that way. Whereas as an AI artist, and I don’t mean to play down any artistry or, you know, talent of anyone who does it, I think the approach is so much different that the identification will just follow that.

Helen Todd: One thing that is really interesting more from a commercial standpoint, which we kind of already talked about a little bit, is kind of how AI is going to impact workflows and then client expectations.

And one thing that you had said before is like you almost have to learn it cuz if you don’t then you know the clients are going to go to other photographers who have, so I was wondering if you kind of could expand like, one, on your thought process of like, it’s not an option not to understand AI and then yeah, kind of how you’re thinking about it from workflows and efficiencies, like the pros and cons.

Cuz I think a lot of people in photography especially like professional photographers are probably thinking about some of those same things right now or are scared and haven’t jumped in or have jumped in and scared or, you know, or excited, you know, or somewhere in between.

Thomas Boenig: Yeah, I mean, you have to, I think AI will speed up the way we interact with, with the clients. If you have, let’s say a fashion catalog shooting after 10 hour day and 14 to 15 different outfits, you’ll be sitting in your hotel room having to sort through somewhat between 10 and 15,000 shots depending on if there was movement in the pictures. And you had a lot of, you had a lot of pictures taken.

And I have no problem speeding up the process of editing those pictures by some sort of AI which you could prompt to pick out the, you know, the best 50 shots. Take the sharpest ones, take only the ones where the eyes are open, sort of, you know, easy prompts that will do what you would be doing in two or three hours, within 10 or 15 seconds.

I think that will improve working with the clients a lot because, you know, clients are always demanding to get their product out as fast as possible. And of course they wanna have the pictures as fast as possible to being able to, you know, deploy them, work with them, whatever they’re doing with it.

So if we can speed up that process, I’m totally fine with it. The only risk for the photographer is, let’s say if you have, you know, a week of catalog shootings, you could, you know, invoice the client two to three days to, you know, do the edit.

And, that’s money you’ll find it hard to charge the client for that if you know, automize, automate the process and do it in like 15 seconds because as soon as the client knows he’s not gonna, no, he’s not gonna pay for that anymore.

And I mean, you could look at it in the way that, you know, you’re not charging two days for, you know, editing and then selecting pictures. You could use those two days to take more pictures, but in reality, the way I worked as a photographer, it’s not working that I come back from a job and just do the selection in 15 seconds and, you know, start shooting right away cause there’s other stuff to do as well.

So there is risk of implementing a lot of AI to your workflow. There’s also a lot of chances. And then, you just have to, you know, navigate through it and find a way where you don’t lose money and, but when time, you just want it to be in balance, I guess.

Helen Todd: Yeah. So finding the workflow efficiencies for better servicing your clients. I know so many photographers, professional photographers that it can be challenging financially to constantly find work, and now you’re just adding another complexity to it of finding efficiencies. But does that mean you also need more clients to fill the door?

So I understand that for sure. Are there any other conversations like that you’re having with your other photography friends related to like AI and the photography business itself?

Thomas Boenig: Business related, not that much because we, I mean, you can, you know, improve conversations with your clients with AI, and we’re talking about that.

And talking a lot with my friend Martin about AI, and we’re, you know, some conversations were very bleak about the whole development. And then there’s other conversations where we, you know, we’re just absolutely amazed by the potential that’s in there. And, so that goes back and forth, but pretty much every photographer I’m talking about has more worries than excitement about the technology.

Helen Todd: Well, let’s take a second to actually talk more about you and your photography and how you got into photography, since this is a show on creativity as well, and to kind of get a little bit more inside, your mind and creative process. So in the prerecorded intro, everyone knows that you’re from Germany, but where did you grow up and how did you first get involved with photography?

Thomas Boenig: Yeah, sure, sure. I was born in Nuremberg and grew up in a small town bordering it, about 40,000 people living there. And my first contact with photography there was my dad. We’re very different people and photography was sort of the only connection that we had in common. And also traveling, so he used to travel a lot. So, yeah, that was mainly our connection.
And at some point I got his 25 year old Konica TC SLR camera set, which was very old at the time already. And yeah, started taking pictures whenever we were on family holidays. And then at some point skateboarding entered my life and determined it for a long, long time.

And, it turns out I was okay skateboarding, but I wasn’t super talented, which resulted in me getting hurt. Quite a few times. And whenever I was hurt and couldn’t skateboard, I mean, you still want to be with your friends that were skateboarding too. So I brought the camera to, you know, the skate park and wherever we hung out and started taking pictures.

And, I, it was, looking back, that was pretty much the greatest time of my life because I could do, you know what I loved, there were a lot of friends in involved, and there were no real stakes. It was just hanging out and doing what you love. And I still, whenever things are getting difficult now, I’m looking back thinking you’re still doing what you love and you’re still doing what you set out to do in a way. So I keep that time very close to my heart.

And, yeah, also skateboarding had had a big impact on my career because the first like really paid jobs that I had during the apprenticeship that I started, after getting out of college, no, sorry, high school, were jobs for skateboard magazines.
So that’s how my career really started. I was a regular photographer for a variety of skateboarding magazines back when print was still a thing. And that was sort of the entry into the professional realm of photography.

Helen Todd: Well, one thing I’ll say first is working with Leica Camera for so many years, I love that there’s such a connection between photography and skateboarding.

For those who aren’t familiar with skateboarding, like the whole subculture, like photography is a really big element in that. And I know, Leica interviewed and featured many photographers that were also skateboarders or documented photography. So it’s a really cool, I guess sport plus photography combination that really great to see.

Thomas Boenig: Yeah, and it, the funny part is the photographers that are using Leica now and, you know, the guys that Leica is interviewing are my childhood heroes on a skateboard. So we all got older in a way, and there’s a lot of them who took up photography and started shooting with Leica, and I can’t blame him.

Leica definitely did, yeah, was a huge contributor to how my photography involved and how I, you know, my sort of, my perspective on, on taking pictures changed.

Helen Todd: So how did you go from more street photography style of documenting skateboarders to, into more, commercial photography?
Thomas Boenig: After finishing high school, I started studying law for a year and just found out that it’s not for me and that I wanted to, you know, work and be more on the creative side instead of going to school again for a couple of years. And so I wanted to do an apprenticeship and I applied to a lot of photography studios in the region.

And they were like your everyday regular portrait studio, yeah, portrait photography studios, and I got declined about 39 out of 40 times. And the one company that then hired me as an apprentice was one of Nuremberg’s biggest commercial photography studios. And that sort of changed everything for me in a way that before I was convinced it’s okay if you have, you know, a camera and maybe you have a little flash you can put on top and then, you know, you take skateboarding pictures and whatnot.

And then I went into this huge commercial studio and there were light, there were light boxes that were, I don’t know, bigger than the room I was living at the moment. And everything just looked so intimidating and so different than anything I had seen related to photography and that captured me. The whole equipment side of it, the hardware, how does, how do things work and how do I light a whole scene?

And I’m still very, very close friends with the guy who, yeah, I was an apprentice for over the three years. And we were, our department was responsible for the bedding section. We took, we had a few catalog clients and that’s within that catalog they had like beddings and sheets and whatnot, anything you would find in your bedroom.

And so we were creating huge sets for those products. Windows, walls, curtains, the drapes, carpets, whatever, you name it. We set it up and that was exactly what I needed at the point because I wanted to work. So I had, you know, photography, and I also had like, some physical challenges and I needed to learn a lot of, you know, the craftsmanship, just because you’re learning about photography doesn’t mean that you know how to set up, I don’t know, a bed or lay out a wooden floor.

And that just contributed to the whole fascination I had for photography at the point, and it being in a commercial area, sort of made me go into that direction even though I was about a year in, one and a half years in, I was pretty sure that I didn’t wanna have to do a lot with bed sheets and carpets anymore.

But that I wanted to go for, you know, people, photography people, lifestyle, that was sort of the goal for me after finishing the apprenticeship.

Helen Todd: And after the apprenticeship is that when you went out on your own or did you work for some other agencies before going freelance?

Thomas Boenig: I went, I got out of the, you know, the respective school that you have to attend to finish the apprenticeship. And a very close, close friend of mine who’s still my best friend Martin, he went out at the same time and we both started working freelance. Now, typically you don’t, you don’t have, I mean, I had a few clients like magazines, you know, but nothing that could sustain me, yeah, completely sustain me.

So, you start working as a photographer and I pretty soon after finishing the apprenticeship, I again noticed that I didn’t know anything about photography because work inside the studio is completely different from work outside of the studio.

And I started working as a photo assistant and I had a few photographers I really wanted to work for. And year by year I sort of added one to the list. And I was very fortunate to work with great photographers in any field. It was not that I just wanted to do one kind of photography. I mean, people would’ve been nice, but I was also interested in automotive and, yeah, product photography.
And so I tried to learn as much as I could. And the photo assisting is hard in itself. But it’s the best way to learn. And whoever is thinking about starting a career in photography or working as a photo assistant, I can only recommend going out meeting as many photographers as possible. Being rejected by the ones you wanna work for 20 times is normal, but it’ll pay off in the end. Learn as much as you can.

Helen Todd: Yeah. And you mentioned that you like taking portraits and we’ll be sure to include some of your photography in the blog post that goes with this episode and link to your website and your Instagram account. But it’s really beautiful portraits.

Can you tell us kind of like why you love portrait photography and your approach to really capturing the portraits that you do?

Thomas Boenig: I think people are sort of the soul of the earth. Any story that has ever been told was told by a human being.
And when I started or when I decided to really go for people photography, it took me a while. And that’s where Leica comes back into play to realize that you don’t need high profile people to tell a story. You know, as a young photographer, you look at other photographers, whoever, Annie Leibovitz, Martin Schiller, you know, all the big names and you’re like, man, of course you’re shooting Brad Pitt. Of course the picture will come out great.

But that’s not an excuse to not take beautiful pictures yourself because you have to find, sort of that, let’s say Brad Pitt in whoever you’re taking pictures of.

Everybody has his or her story to tell. And identifying that and sort of weaving that into a story is, weaving the story into a picture, that’s the job of a good photographer. And I still gotta learn a lot.

And that’s one sentence a good friend of mine, David Koenigsman who’s also a very, very talented photographer, one of the guys I had on my list to work with, he said, as a young photographer, you have to keep your eyes open all the time and on everyone. Just keep watching, keep your eyes open.

And when he said that 10 years ago, he was my age now, so he considered himself a young photographer. So I’m still considering myself a young photographer and that’s still a lot to learn. And interacting with people always makes you learn new things. And so the whole keeping your eyes open and listening, listening to people and their stories, that’s the soul of, that’s the interesting part of I think any job.

Helen Todd: Well, and I love also how you’ve said that you kind of take a break from commercial photography and with your street photography, so I was wondering if you could kind of expand on how that’s kind of like a breath of fresh air from your commercial photography?

Thomas Boenig: The whole commercial photography is very planning-extensive. It’s very, you have tight schedules, you have tight budgets, you have no time windows to really interact with people. That goes for, you know, real commercial jobs, but also if you just, you know, taking pictures of musicians or celebrities or politicians or whatever, there’s almost no time and there’s always high stakes.

You gotta come up with something. For me, I needed a camera to vent this pressure in photography that I, at least I was feeling during the time. So in 2012, I decided to buy a used Leica M9 just to have a camera to vent all the high profile jobs that I was doing on the other hand.

And I wanted a camera to just take with me, have, you know, the possibility to take great pictures and not be intimidating with the camera. And that’s exactly what the Leica M9 was to me at the point.

And I didn’t expect it to change my way of photography that much because all of a sudden, it took me out of this notion of meeting, you know, very important people or musicians to come up with a, with a great picture and the Leica just, you know, enabled me, it, that camera was a wild card for me to go anywhere and talk to anyone who I found was interesting and take their picture.

And that then again reflected onto the commercial work because I could relax. I felt like I could relax a little more and come back to the process of taking pictures and focusing on, you know, what I want the picture to look like without feeling all that pressure.
That’s why, that’s what Leica and specifically the M9 did for me. And I’m really, really thankful for that. Also, Rangefinder camera is just a different type of camera so you know, you see things differently and I wasn’t expecting that to be such a huge impact on my job.

Helen Todd: Yeah, well I mentioned before we started recording, looking at all of your Rangefinder photos for the blog that we worked on forever ago got me all excited and motivated me, or is motivating me to take more photos, with my camera cuz I definitely do not get it out enough.

Thomas Boenig: Well, I thank you. You should, you should take more pictures.

Helen Todd: Well, I think one thing that’s interesting too, kind of going back to AI is the difference between street photography and commercial photography. And you said something really beautiful before, earlier when we were speaking about how street photography you really have to be in the moment, whereas commercial photography, you’re kind of creating the moment.
So in some ways street photography really won’t be affected by AI in the same way that commercial photography is. So I was wondering if you could kind of expand on that a little bit more too?

Thomas Boenig: Well, I think when on any commercial job, the client has an expectation that you have to fulfill. And any client with any budget will always expect perfection.

And I do see some parallels here to AI because AI is just the, you know, you’re striving for perfection or that’s, let’s say humanity optimizing towards perfection. You want to have perfect prompts. You want to have the perfect answer from ChatGPT. You wanna have the perfect picture out of Midjourney.

And that’s sort of very similar to the commercial photography world. You don’t, there’s sometimes, there’s a lot of money involved. Sometimes there is not a lot of time and you still have to come up with something that the client regards as perfection. And to me, I think it’s sad because AI there is eradicating imperfections.

It’s, you know, eradicating the little, you know, mistakes that you do that turn into something super beautiful. And street photography is sort of, it’s chaos in a way. You don’t have any influence on, you know, what’s really happening and you’re not creating the moment that you’re taking the picture, you’re just, you’re there as a witness.

You have to keep your eyes open. You have to be in the moment. Maybe you have to think ahead a little bit, like about what’s about to happen. But you’re not in control. You’re just witnessing it. And a lot of pictures, they don’t come out perfect. They come out with a lot of imperfections.

But I love those little imperfections because you don’t, you just, you have to accept them. And I think imperfection is a big part of life. And imperfection has led to, you know, many, many great ideas. I love, I love the little imperfections and that’s why I love street photography. And that’s why I do, that’s why I am a little critical about AI because I feel AI is going to eradicate a lot of the beautiful imperfections that life has to offer.

Helen Todd: Yeah, I think it’s interesting too in the, you know, there’s always trends and pendulum swinging one way or the other. And especially with Midjourney, there’s like this hyperrealism aesthetic that a lot of the imagery kind of captures right now, or how it looks. And at the same time, I think it, it’s kind of the contrast. There’s a trend in the US called cringe, but that we’re already seeing some of the imperfections or, you know, kind of being embraced too.

Like this is human made. It’s not perfect. So it’s kind of an interesting aesthetic tension, that we’re kind of in the middle of right now. I don’t know if you’ve seen that at all on your side, in Germany or online from any of the content that you’re looking at.

Thomas Boenig: Well, I think not to the extent, I haven’t. Cringe that’s new for me. But, I can, maybe that’s, we’re already at a tipping point, and I think we talked about this shortly before we started recording the podcast, was that this perfection, if you apply for a job and you write your resume, ChatGPT or whatever other text based AI word generator will do that perfectly, there’s not going to be a typo in there.

There’s not going to be any grammatical errors in there. So maybe at some point down in the future, if there’s a typo in there, you’ll be noticed by the guys in the respective HR department because you have a typo in there and you’re the only one who’s having it.

So maybe that’s when the imperfections become, you know, more important again, or those imperfections show that you are an individual that makes mistakes.

So I can imagine that there’s trends coming up that specifically focus on imperfections. Cause AI is not going to deliver those.
Helen Todd: I could also see the AI also delivering images or text with imperfections if that’s, you know, cuz all it does is humans reinforce, you know, what we wanna see from it.

And if we prefer content with imperfections that it will actually purposefully make imperfections like that. I could see that as a possibility too for better or for worse.

Thomas Boenig: That’s true. But then it’s not an imperfection then it’s a prompt again, you know.

Helen Todd: A fake, a deep fake imperfection.

Thomas Boenig: A deep fake imperfection.

Helen Todd: One thing that came to mind when you were talking about why you love portrait photography so much, as like capturing people, it was so beautiful how you said it and how important, you know, like eyes are, or it made me think about, you know, eyes are the gateway for people’s souls and you know, I’ve heard that in some ways using AI generated people can be a benefit, especially if it’s maybe talking about a nonprofit that’s dealing with a very sensitive subject and instead of having someone that, you know, could be in an exploitative state, that you use an AI generated person, instead of, you know, someone that could be, you know, it’s a sensitive subject material to photograph to begin with.

And I see those use cases really well. But you know, aside from models and stuff, you know, I really don’t think that you’ll ever get with AI the eyes and the soul related to people captured in the photography. Is that something that you agree with? I couldn’t, I can’t imagine someone disagreeing with me.

But I’m curious like your response to that?

Thomas Boenig: Well, I think if it depends again on what you want to achieve with the picture. If you are, you know, if your focus is absolute perfection, that’s a difficult question.

Helen Todd: Well, I think it just gets to, like, how good can AI get to replicating human eyes, which are like the gateway to the soul? I don’t think that’s something that a machine can replicate because it requires the humans to have the soul and the machines won’t ever get to that. I think that’s my current thesis as I’m talking aloud for the show.

Thomas Boenig: You could be right, but I, have you watched any Pixar movie lately?

Helen Todd: What was the last Pixar movie? I love Pixar. Like, Inside Out is one of my favorite films of all time.

Thomas Boenig: I’m just remembering, I think it was called Soul.

Helen Todd: Oh yeah. That’s a beautiful one. Yeah.

Thomas Boenig: And I, like, that movie really, really got me. Like, I was, gotta be honest here, I was bawling my eyes out at some point. And isn’t it interesting that, you know, a man in the end of his thirties starts, you know, crying over an animated movie and none of the persons in the movie is realistic, not even close to realistic and still certain expressions in the face, you know, combined with whatever music and, you know, big eyes tearing up in an animation movie will move you?

So I don’t think you, to reach the viewer of any kind of picture, you don’t have to be realistic in a way. You just have to transport a feeling. And I think AI is capable of doing that. I can’t really tell the difference between AI and real pictures in some of the posts I see online.

So, yeah, transporting feelings, you don’t need realism for that. So, I think AI is probably doing a good job at it already, and we’re just questioning it for the reason or just for the reason of it being, you know, created with artificial intelligence.
Helen Todd: Yeah, I think that’s fair. And, and I think that can be applied to any art, like no matter what form, like the purpose of art is to resonate with people, no matter.

Thomas Boenig: Exactly.

Helen Todd: which medium it takes. Okay. I’ll have to think about that more and we’ll circle back and I’m curious what the audience, what your reactions are, if you have any strong opinions.

Well, we’re getting towards the end even though I think we could keep talking about this for hours and hours.

Are there any kind of final thoughts that you wanna say or maybe something that I didn’t ask, related to AI and photography that you wanted to be sure that we discussed today before we sign off?

Thomas Boenig: I’d love to see people taking pictures in a few years, still not relying completely on artificial intelligence and their little prompt boxes in whatever, you know, tool they’re using because it’s the whole process that makes photography so, so interesting.

And it’s what kept me alive for sure, all of these years, or kept me in the job is, you know, the people and all the effort that goes into creating photography. Yeah, I’d hate to see the craft slowly fade away and being replaced by computers, but AI will have so many, so many positive impacts on our lives, that’s also the question if maybe we can sacrifice photography for the sake of humanity being able to cure cancer, I’m, I’m totally, totally fine with that if that’s the result.

I think the only important thing is we have to be very realistic about AI right now being the reflection of human achievement. However, if humanity decides to only do what AI is perceiving as a good achievement we’re gonna be in trouble.

Helen Todd: Yeah. I appreciate you being so honest and open about that. And my hope is that photography will continue to exist, the craft will continue to exist, and AI can exist and they can coexist and both thrive however form that it takes.

But I do know, you know, photography, displaced portrait photography, you know, or not portrait photography, portrait painting in a lot of ways, even though portrait painting still exists, but it’s very niche compared to portrait photography and photography in general. So I do, you know, acknowledge the real concern about how the industry is gonna be impacted and changing.

And,yeah, time will tell, I guess, on that front, but it sounds like you won’t be stopping taking photos. So we’ll keep checking in with you and keep on following all of the amazing work that you do.

So why don’t you, let everyone know who’s listening, how they can, how they can find you online. And we’ll also be sure to put it all the links in the blog post too on the website.

Thomas Boenig: Well, I’m on Instagram, so that’s gonna be at Thomas underslash Boenig or on my website www.thomasboenig.com. And I’m happy to you guys, I’m super happy, super stoked to having been invited to your podcast and I think you’re doing a great job in, you know, having all views on AI and creativity and like present in your podcast and getting sort of a lot of different voices to tell what they think, that’s amazing. I’m really happy that I can be a part of it.

Helen Todd: Thank you for saying that, and I’m so glad that you are part of it, and we’ll definitely keep checking in, and we’ll see maybe six months or a year from now where the industry is, the photography industry, where AI is, if we’re still alive.

Thomas Boenig: Jesus. What a way to end it, Helen.

Helen Todd: Thank you for spending some time with us today. We’re just getting started and would love your support. Subscribe to Creativity Squared on your preferred podcast platform and leave a review. It really helps and I’d love to hear your feedback. What topics are you thinking about and want to dive into more?

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