A Note from Sarah

There's something I want you to know before you look at any of this work - I'm still in the middle of figuring out how I feel about it.

I spent fourteen years building a photography practice around the things AI cannot easily replicate: the instinct to see light, the relationship with a subject, the gift of being fully present in a moment and making something beautiful from it. So when I started working with generative AI tools, I didn't expect the excitement to hit so hard. Or the confusion. Or the grief about what we might be losing. Or the genuine wonder of watching these tools open doors for people who never had access to them before.

It is a lot to hold.

All of these things are true at once. AI has expanded what I can make and imagine in ways that still surprise me. It has also made me question authorship, labor, and what it means to call myself a photographer - questions I haven't fully resolved and am not pretending to have resolved.

What I do know is this: the skills I spent years developing/honing didn't disappear. Composition, color theory, visual storytelling, the art direction instilled in every frame - they didn't go anywhere. They deepened. They found new expression in ways I genuinely didn't see coming. And what emerges from that combination doesn't look like what most people picture when they hear the words "AI imagery."

I'm documenting this ongoing reckoning on my Substack - the process, the doubt, the unexpected discoveries, and everything in between. I'd love for you to follow along

Here’s my Substack - Field Notes from the Intersection of Photography & AI