The Sony World Photography Competition 2023 awards ceremony was held in London on Thursday (13th) local time. German photography artist Boris Eldagsen won the creative category with his portrait of two women for PSEUDOMNESIA | The Electricia. However, Boris Eldagsen publicly stated at the award ceremony that his work was actually created by the AI pattern generator DALL-E2, so he refused to accept the award.
The conference originally did not invite Boris Eldagsen to the stage. He made a public speech on the stage by himself. Afterwards, he made his speech public on social networking sites. Eldagsen said, “Thank you very much for selecting my work and creating this historic moment. This is the first ever AI-generated image and won an internationally renowned ‘photography’ competition. How many people know or Suspect this is an AI-generated image? It looks kind of weird, right?”
Eldagsen emphasized that AI images and photos should not compete with each other in such competitions, they are different entities. He said that he would not accept this award, because AI is not photography, I will not accept this award (AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award. )
Eldagsen said that as a photographer with more than 30 years of shooting experience, he has switched to AI creation, and called on the photography community to start a public discussion on this, “We should discuss what is photography and what is not? Can the scope of photography be expanded to Contains AI generated images? Or is this a bug?”
Eldagsen pointed out that he submitted AI works to different photography competitions, intending to explore whether these competitions are ready to face AI-generated images. The result he came up with was that many games were not ready yet.
Eldagsen’s PSEUDOMNESIA | The Electricia is a black and white photograph comprising portraits of two women, one older and the other relatively young. The older woman stands behind the younger woman, wrapping her arms around the other’s shoulders, and a male-looking hand appears in the foreground. The photo was taken using antique photography techniques, but upon closer inspection, the skin on the faces of the two people is somewhat unnatural and lacks details.
In the results of the open competition on March 14, Eldagsen’s photo won the single prize in the “Creativity” category. Currently, the photo has been removed from the contest website.
The photography community has discussed Eldagsen’s behavior and views, and many people have begun to think about whether AI-generated images should compete with traditional photography, and whether the definition of photography needs to be re-examined. As an experienced photographer, Eldagsen expressed his willingness to actively participate in this discussion and share his views and experience on AI technology.
Credit: Boris Eldagsen, Alex Schwander
