. . . the current level of tech in digital photography is about as advanced as I plan to get. No, it’s not because I’m too old to learn new things. It’s because of what I’ve learned about emerging tech that I’ve decided to apply the brakes.

With computational photography already giving way to generative AI in the processing aspect of images, I intend to be among those who remain a photographer rather than a digital illustrator. Don’t get me wrong; some of the stuff I see nowadays is exciting. And I encourage anyone eager to pursue that course to go full speed ahead. But watch out for the speed bumps . . .

. . . and the tolls.

At some point in the evolution of this technology, the matter of authorship (and therefore copyright) will become a subject of debate. There’s already more than one image-processing software company whose end-user license agreement gives them ongoing rights to the improvements users make in images using their software.

That paves the way for companies to claim further rights, even a slice of the pie, for images their software helped to “create.” See where it’s headed?

No issue for me, though. If I see a white sky when I point my camera at a landscape, that’s what I want to see in my raw file and finished image, even though I may wish the sky had been cerulean blue when I shot the picture. As for next-generation digital “photography”?

Well, as far as I’m concerned, that train already left the station. And I’m very content that I wasn’t on it.

SL2/35mm Summicron-M v. III . . .