Yeah I agree, I never understood the appeal of photography, it's so easy, you don't need to paint for hours to produce something original, you just need to buy a camera and click on a button. That's it. And people pay for that, I don't get it.
https://www.austinmann.com/trek/iphone-16-pro-camera-review-...
Understanding why your camera performs well in certain conditions and how to tweak the camera, is a mini-science all of its own. Also i think the reason photography is appreciated is because of composition.
Knowing where to position yourself, and at what moment, can make photographs turn out magical. Your eyes are processing millions of frames a second, but a photographer often gets just ONE chance to capture some scenes. Some people appreciate the “art” in that. :)
Here’s a thought experiment. Do you consider all wedding photographers to be of equal value? If not, why? Anyone can do it according to you. just click a button. Something to think about…
I do. It can take hours to make the vision in your head be replicated by the AI. Sure you can spit out generic scenes, but the game changes when the goal is expressing a specific vision with the prompt; choosing the right synonyms, phrasing, etc to make it spit out the closest image.
Do I think I'm an artist for that? Not particularly. I like to think of myself as a prompt engineer, a completely different skill for sure, after all I do think overly logical and practical in life in general so it meshes well with my skills plus my artistic background.
“a skill at doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice.”
I agree that a photographer is not a true artist. It’s not hard to understand why people might appreciate their skill and creativity though?