‘Photography Isn’t Dying’ Says VSCO
In a world where photography software companies don’t always give photography or photographers the respect they deserve, VSCO has committed to the importance of photography.
“Photography isn’t dying,” VSCO says. “It’s never mattered more.”
VSCO has launched a new U.S. brand campaign at what the company calls a “defining moment” for the photography industry, “when infinite images can be easily generated and algorithms favor likes and trends over originality and craft.” The new ad campaign strikes at the heart of many of the fears that photographers, both amateur and professional alike, are feeling in the AI age.
Alongside the campaign, VSCO’s CEO, Eric Wittman, released a letter to the public.
“We’ve all heard it: ‘Photography is dying.’ Social platforms are burying your best work in an endless reel of trends. Traditional tools are telling you to skip the photoshoot. Brands are replacing real photos with generated ones. And the doubting voices in the room are telling you to quit,” Wittman writes.
“We are not one of those voices. We champion photographers. We always have and always will.
“Your eye, the way you see the world, can’t be generated. It can’t be prompted. It’s irreplaceable.
“Real work made by real people has never mattered more. People feel the difference. They’re searching for it, even when the algorithm never shows it to them.
“Photography isn’t dying. It’s never mattered more. You’re exactly what this moment needs.
“We’ve got your back,” Wittman concludes.
As part of its campaign, VSCO worked with a pair of photographers from the VSCO community, Jared Thomas Tapy and Ivana Cajina. VSCO says it selected these two photographers for their distinct styles, and each was tasked with documenting the other in their own creative element, using a mix of digital and analog photography.
“No one but you is behind the lens,” VSCO says.
PetaPixel’s Take
Damn straight. It’s refreshing to hear a company, even one that builds AI tools for photographers, so adamantly state that it is not interested in selling us out.
Now, of course, VSCO is not allergic to AI as a company. Despite the company saying that what photographers do and see cannot be “prompted,” VSCO’s AI Lab, which launched last October, does in fact have prompts.
While that could conceivably undercut the company’s message a bit, VSCO’s clear focus has long been and remains finding ways to empower photographers to do good, real work. The company has committed significant resources in recent months and years to smoothing out common friction points for professionals, for example, enabling them to focus more on shooting and less on all the tedium that comes with being a working photographer.
Aftershoot, which is explicitly an AI photo editing company, recently sung a similar tune, promising to never work against photographers’ interests.
There is always a lingering question in cases like this. Are companies truly serious about not only empowering photographers but also actively protecting the craft from encroaching AI technology for the right reasons? Will the attitudes shift if the flow of money changes down the road?
It’s impossible to predict the future, but I have spoken candidly with VSCO’s CEO, Eric Wittman, many times over the years, and he has never wavered from VSCO’s commitment to developing tools for real photographers to create better real photos.
Aside from that, it’s just always nice to hear a company tell photographers, “We see you and we believe in the value of what you do.”
Image credits: VSCO
