The Stunning Photo That Was Never Taken

An artistic representation of AI photography.

This article elaborates on a personal anecdote of the author.

Her freckled cheek. Her glassy gaze. Her ghost in high resolution. It was the most stunning photograph I’d ever seen. 

Sitting front row in Mr. Kelsey’s photography class, I waited with bated breath, dying to know who the genius behind it was. 

“This,” he said, “was generated entirely by AI.” 

At first, I thought he was joking. I inspected the photo again, searching for telltale signs: an extra hand, a warped ear, the uncanniness of synthetic skin. But everything from the patchy texture of her wind-chapped face to the shadow of flyaway hairs felt like this had come from someone like me. Someone who had known this girl was worth remembering. 

I winced, my back still aching from crouching earlier that morning. I’d gone downtown to catch the sunrise beneath the 6th Street overpass. I knew the exact spot where the sun broke through the beams at the perfect angle. For forty-five minutes, I waited. Finally, a man strolled into frame, and I fired the shutter thirteen times. That single silhouette took me nearly an hour and everything I knew about light, timing, and patience. 

Now I was staring at an image that had taken none of that. I was speechless. I’d always believed art was inseparable from human experience—not just in the photos I take, but in the people I take them with and for. In galleries, group critiques, and long nights editing alongside other art aficionados, I’ve seen how art connects. The idea that AI could replace that is terrifying.

And yet, here we are.

The image in Mr. Kelsey’s classroom wasn’t captured with a shutter or through a viewfinder. It was created by an algorithm trained on billions of images scraped from the internet, designed to simulate human creativity. Tools like Midjourney, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion can generate lifelike photographs in seconds based on nothing more than text prompts.

This new form of image-making, often referred to as “synthetic photography,” doesn’t rely on cameras, lenses, or even physical reality. AI can produce portraits of people who don’t exist, landscapes that were never there, and moments that never happened. This evolution forces us to confront an important question: what makes a photograph a photograph? Is it the technology used? The act of shooting an image? The intent of the artist? Photography, traditionally, has been a product of reality. Even the most abstract or manipulated images usually begin with some real moment in time. But with AI, the output can have almost the same effect.

It would be easy to write off AI as the enemy of photographers, but the reality is more complex. Many working artists and professionals are already integrating AI into their workflows to assist with their work. AI now powers advanced editing tools in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, suggesting enhancements, removing distractions, and even relighting scenes. Portrait photographers use AI to smooth skin and brighten eyes. Event shooters use AI to cull thousands of photos in minutes. Because of all of this, the line between enhancement and fabrication is becoming increasingly blurred.

One of photography’s greatest powers is its credibility. We believe in the truth of a photograph, in the sense that it reflects something that happened somewhere or to someone. That trust is now under siege. Deepfakes and AI-generated images are already being used to spread misinformation. In 2023, a fake photo of Pope Francis in a puffer jacket went viral before being debunked. Even professional photographers and journalists were fooled. This has profound implications for news, history, and personal identity. To preserve authenticity, some artists and institutions are exploring certifications and metadata standards to verify the origin of an image. But technology evolves fast, and truth may become more difficult to pin down.

What that AI-generated portrait lacked, for me, was not realism but context. There was no story behind the shutter. No chilly morning. No aching knees. No nervous anticipation of whether the light would break just right. Photography, for many of us, is not just about the final image; rather, it’s also about the patience and problem-solving behind it, as well as the connection with its subjects, places, and ourselves. AI, no matter how advanced, doesn’t feel anything. The result may be beautiful, but it is certainly not art.

Perhaps the healthiest way forward is not to fight AI, but to acknowledge it as a new subset within photography. Just as digital art found its place beside painting, synthetic photography can sit beside documentary, portrait, and fine art photography. Competitions are even beginning to create separate categories for AI-generated images. 

What’s important is that we, as a creative community, define what we value. Not every image needs to be “real,” but we should know when it isn’t. The public deserves to know whether what they’re seeing was real or a product of generative technology. 

As I sat there in Mr. Kelsey’s class, still digesting the truth of that image, I realized something: AI can replicate the image. But it can’t replace the experience. And maybe that’s where photography, as an art form, holds its own.