My Daughter Wants to Be a Photographer in the Age of AI. Here's What I've Learned. (AI and Creatives)

The Professor
14 minutes ago
7 min read

As a parent, watching your child discover their passion is a joy. But when that passion is a creative one in today’s world, that joy is mixed with a healthy dose of concern. Here’s a look at the real-world lessons I’ve found while exploring the future of art and AI.

My daughter wants to be a photographer. Seeing her eyes light up behind the lens and watching her unique perspective on the world take shape is wonderful. But as she talks about a future in the arts, I feel a familiar sense of unease, one that reminds me of when digital cameras first arrived, seemingly threatening to erase film forever. Today, a much larger wave is breaking: generative AI. It feels like it’s threatening not just a type of photography, but the very soul of it, along with the livelihoods of the artists who dedicate their lives to the craft.

As a parent, I can’t just stand by; I need to understand the world she is so eager to step into. Is it a landscape of doom or utopia for creatives? The truth, I've discovered, is far more complex and nuanced. For my daughter, and for any young person with a creative spark—and for their parents—the real-world experiences of artists navigating this new terrain are more valuable than any algorithm-fueled hot take. Their stories reveal how AI is reshaping demand, value, ethics, and even our understanding of creative identity. By listening to them, we can begin to see where the true risks lie—and where real opportunity remains.

Voices from the Field: Case Studies in a Shifting World

To understand what’s really happening, let’s move beyond the headlines and listen to the people living through this transformation.

Kelly McKernan: The Fight for an Artist’s Identity

Kelly McKernan, an artist celebrated for a distinctive, dreamy sci-fi illustration style, faced a deeply unsettling experience in 2022. They started seeing images online that felt like they were pulled from their own imagination. “I felt they represented unfinished sketches in my head that I hadn’t even put onto paper yet,” McKernan told Time magazine. “It was really disturbing.” 1

They soon discovered that their name was being used as a keyword thousands of times on AI art platforms like Midjourney, allowing anyone to generate images that mimicked their unique “signature look” in an instant—all without their consent. As these AI-generated alternatives flooded the market, McKernan’s commissions for book covers and album art began to dry up. “It’s also pretty wild to know that instead of hiring me for a book cover, someone can just go into a program, use my name to emulate something close enough and good enough, at a fraction of the price,” they said. 1

This direct threat to their livelihood prompted McKernan to become one of the lead plaintiffs in a landmark class-action lawsuit against AI firms, arguing that the unlicensed use of their work to train image models is a form of mass copyright infringement. “These companies are profiting wildly off our unpaid labor,” McKernan stated, calling the situation an “existential crisis” for a whole class of creative professionals. 1 2

The Lesson: McKernan’s story is a stark reminder that AI isn’t just an abstract technology; it can directly compete with human creators, leading to income loss, legal battles, and a profound sense of violation.

Malik Afegbua: Embracing AI as a New Creative Medium

In contrast, some creators are finding ways to harness AI as a powerful new tool. Malik Afegbua, a self-taught Nigerian filmmaker and photographer, used Midjourney and Photoshop to create The Elder Series, a stunning and imaginative “fashion runway for elders.” The project, which went viral, was born from a personal place; his mother had suffered a stroke, and he “wanted to think about her in a happy place.” 3

The series re-imagined age, style, and representation in a way that captivated a global audience. While some critics argued it undermined traditional artistry, many more praised its visionary creativity. Afegbua’s work shows that AI can be more than just a content mill; in the right hands, it can be a medium for articulating powerful concepts, challenging cultural norms, and reaching audiences in new and unexpected ways. “AI is not All,” Afegbua wisely noted. “It can’t think by itself, there is always a human being behind it regardless – to put things in motion.” 3

The Lesson: For those willing to experiment, AI can be a partner in the creative process, a tool not for replacement, but for reimagining what’s possible.

Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre: AI-Augmented Vision and the Echoes of History

Known for their haunting photographs of modern ruins, the French duo Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre turned to AI for their 2024 project, Les Ruines de Paris. They used the technology to create a dystopian, abandoned vision of their home city, a powerful meditation on loss, memory, and urban decay. 4

By blending their deep-seated artistic fascination with ruins, the history of photography, and the capabilities of AI, they created a project that feels both futuristic and deeply rooted in the past. They even presented the AI-generated images using antique stereoscopes, physically connecting the digital output to the 19th-century photographic tradition. For them, AI became a way to “stage our fascination with ruins and the anxieties of the present era,” while also exploring the “fear of human obsolescence in the face of the rise of AI.” 4

The Lesson: Hybrid art practices combining photography and AI can produce work that is conceptually rich and emotionally resonant. AI can be a tool for augmenting an artist’s vision, not just mimicking it.

The Broader Landscape: What the Research Says

These individual stories are echoed in broader academic research, which paints a picture of a creative community grappling with both the promise and the peril of AI.

•A 2024 survey of 380 artists, designers, and other users found that while non-professionals saw AI as a tool to democratize creation, many professionals expressed deep concerns over quality, copyright, and the long-term viability of their careers. 5

•A 2025 paper reviewing AI’s impact concluded that while it can boost productivity and preserve heritage, it also risks “creative homogenization, devaluation of human agency, and socio-economic harm to traditional artists,” depending entirely on how we choose to govern it. 6

•Another 2025 study, based on interviews with 20 creative professionals, revealed a widespread feeling that AI developers were completely ignoring their consent, credit, and compensation. 7

•This sentiment was confirmed in a large-scale 2024 survey of 459 artists, the vast majority of whom believe that artworks used for AI training must be disclosed and that AI companies should not automatically own the outputs, especially when they are derived from existing human art. 8

The Takeaway: The creative community is not uniformly anti-AI, but it is demanding transparency, fairness, and respect. The central conflict is not about technology itself, but about governance, attribution, and economic sustainability.

Navigating the New World: Risks and Opportunities for My Daughter

So, what does this all mean for my daughter as she begins her creative journey?

If She Pursues...	The Implication and My Advice
A “Traditional” Path (portraits, commissions, stock)	Risk: She’ll face a market saturated with cheap, AI-generated content. My Advice: She must cultivate a distinctive style, a strong personal brand, and a niche that values human connection, such as documentary storytelling, high-end conceptual portraits, or work that emphasises a unique human point of view.
An Experimental Path (hybrid or conceptual art)	Opportunity: She can use AI as a creative partner, just as Afegbua and Marchand/Meffre did. My Advice: Blend photography with digital art, mixed media, or conceptual narratives. Use AI for ideation and exploration, but always as a tool in service of a unique human vision.
An Ethical Path (advocacy and fair practices)	Opportunity: She can be part of a movement shaping a more equitable future. My Advice: Stay informed about copyright, advocate for transparent licensing, and align with artist collectives pushing for fair governance. Her career can be built on an ethical foundation that clients and audiences will value.
A Long-Term Career (building a sustainable practice)	Risk: The market will constantly shift as AI evolves. My Advice: The most durable skills will be those that AI cannot easily replicate: craft, human connection, empathy, and storytelling. A career built on these pillars will be far more resilient than one built on technical production alone.

The Unsettled Frontier: Regulation and Ethics

The legal and ethical ground is still shifting beneath our feet. In a 2025 policy paper, the Brookings Institution argued forcefully that the human authorship requirement for copyright must be protected, warning that a flood of AI-generated art could devalue originality and cripple the creative economy. 9

Meanwhile, the tools designed to protect artists are already being challenged. A 2025 study from the University of Cambridge revealed that popular protection tools like Glaze and NightShade, which have been downloaded millions of times, can be bypassed, leaving artists vulnerable even when they try to opt out. 10 This underscores a harsh reality: for now, technical solutions alone are not enough.

So, What Will I Tell My Daughter?

After all this research, the conversation I need to have with my daughter has become much clearer. I won’t tell her to fear AI or to ignore it. I’ll tell her to treat it like any other powerful new lens, a tool that can be used to see the world in a new way, but a tool that is ultimately, and always, guided by the person holding it.

But I will urge her to invest the majority of her time and energy in building something machines can’t match: a unique perspective, a deep sense of empathy, and the ability to tell stories rooted in genuine human connection. I’ll encourage her to think of her photography not as the creation of commodity pixels, but as a craft built on narrative, emotion, and the irreplaceable value of her own heart and mind.

The path forward for creatives is not about out-producing the machines. It’s about doubling down on our humanity. If she holds onto her values, stays adaptable, and focuses on what makes her uniquely her, she can build a meaningful and successful career, no matter what the future holds. She is amazing.