Episode 62 - AI Is Changing Everything. But Your Creativity Still Matters
AI Is Changing Everything. But Your Creativity Still Matters.
Welcome to the Photography Breakthrough Podcast.
As we begin October, I want to talk about something I know is sitting quietly in the minds of a lot of creatives: artists, designers, writers, photographers, filmmakers, voiceover artists, and creators everywhere.
It’s AI.
And more specifically, it’s the fear surrounding AI.
Maybe you’ve wondered:
What happens to photography when everyone can generate an image?
What happens to design?
What happens to writing?
What happens to illustration?
What happens to all the years you’ve spent learning your craft?
And maybe the question underneath all of those questions is even more personal:
Will there still be a place for me?
I believe the answer is yes.
But I also think we have to be honest.
Things are changing, and they’re changing fast.
Whenever technology changes an industry, fear usually arrives before clarity.
I’ve lived through enormous changes in photography.
Film to digital.
Darkrooms to Photoshop.
Print portfolios to websites.
Websites to social media.
DSLRs to mirrorless cameras.
Every time something changed, somebody said photography was finished.
But photography didn’t disappear.
It evolved.
And photographers had to evolve with it.
Yes, AI is an enormous shift. Maybe one of the biggest we will ever experience.
But I want you to remember something:
Technology can generate an image. It cannot live your life.
It didn’t experience your childhood.
It didn’t experience your failures.
Your victories.
Your heartbreak.
Your relationships.
Your culture.
Your curiosity.
It didn’t spend years looking at the world and slowly developing a way of seeing that belongs only to you.
And that matters now more than ever.
You are unique.
That’s the way the Creator made you.
Look at your fingerprint for a second.
Out of billions of people on this planet, nobody has a fingerprint exactly like yours.
That’s how unique you are.
The most important thing you bring to your creative work is not simply your ability to operate a camera, hold a brush, use your voice, or master any other creative tool.
It is your point of view.
Your taste.
Your judgment.
Your ability to walk into a room and understand another human being.
Your ability to recognize a moment before anyone else sees it.
Your ability to make somebody feel safe enough to reveal something real.
Those aren’t camera skills.
Those aren’t software skills.
Those are human skills.
And right now, human skills may become even more valuable in a world where creating something technically impressive becomes easier.
Think about that.
If everybody has access to incredible tools, the tool itself becomes less important.
So what becomes more important?
You do.
What you have to say becomes more important.
Your relationships become more important.
Your point of view becomes more important.
Yes, AI might make it possible to create a beautiful image in seconds.
But beautiful images have never been enough.
There are already billions of beautiful images in the world.
The real question has always been:
Why should I care about this one?
Why should I remember it?
Why should I remember you?
That is where humanity enters the picture.
And I want every creative listening to this to understand something as we begin October 2026:
Do not spend the next three months being afraid of the future.
Spend them preparing yourself for it.
Learn.
Experiment.
Stay curious.
But don’t abandon the things that make you human in an attempt to compete with a machine.
Go deeper into them.
Your story.
Your relationships.
Your curiosity.
Your empathy.
Your ability to connect.
Your ability to see.
Those things are not becoming less important.
They are becoming more important.
So if you’re sitting there wondering whether you should keep creating or find something else to do, I want to tell you:
Keep creating.
If you’ve been afraid that you missed your moment, you haven’t.
If you’ve been wondering whether your voice still matters, it does.
Maybe more than ever.
But there is another side to this conversation.
Because hope alone isn’t enough.
We also have to prepare.
Next week, in Part Two, we’re going to talk about how creatives can actually move forward in the age of AI.
And the answer is not fighting technology.
It’s learning how to move forward without losing the very thing that makes your work matter in the first place.
Make sure you join me next week, because this conversation is extremely important if you want to do more than survive this transition.
I want you to thrive through it.
I’m Matthew Jordan Smith, and this is the Photography Breakthrough Podcast.
I look forward to seeing you right back here next week.
You don’t want to miss Part Two.
Until then, always dream big.
Bye for now.
