Barney Slams the AI Door on Old Photography Mate Nige
“You’ve got to be bloody joking, Nige!”
Barney Dawson’s nasal whine cut through the Bridge Hotel’s smoky air like fingernails on a chalkboard. His matey Nigel Hornblower had just shown him some AI-generated photos that looked like they were snapped by an artistic ninja.
“Seriously, Barns, this new ChatGPT 4.0 software is the duck’s guts!” said Nige, his ginger perm vibrating with excitement. “Using just a few text prompts, it can create incredible visual artworks in any style you can imagine. We’re talking Leibovitz-level portraiture, Ansel Adams landscapes, you name it!”
Barney stared at the AI masterpieces glowing on Nige’s tablet, his jowls quivering in stunned disbelief. As a professional band photographer, he’d dedicated decades to mastering his craft, spending thousands on fancy cameras and editing gear. Now some machine was threatening to make all that obsolete in the blink of a singularity.
“So what, we’re just supposed to toss our Nikons in the bin and let the robots take over?” he bellowed. “There’s more to top photography than just mashing out some text!”
Nige shrugged, his face a kaleidoscope of innocence and glee. “Why not? Think how much easier gig photography would be if we could simply describe the shots we wanted! Like ‘ambient light band portrait with bohemian accents’ or ‘audience pulling rock star move, cinéma vérité style.'”
Barney winced, feeling the beginning of a legendary hangover symphony. His body instruments were already tuning up: twin jackhammers pounding the skull, fiery kebab skewers singeing his gullet, a blasphemous gastric Greek chorus warbling up from the adipose depths.
“Don’t think for a second those AI things can capture the true essence of rock and roll debauchery, Nige,” he growled. “Our fans want more than just pretty pics – they want to feel the menacing glare of the mosh pit, the hellish sonic battering, the, um…potent ambiance of spilled beer and discarded underwear.”
His mate looked skeptical. “So you’re saying AI can’t recreate the true rock experience?”
“Exactly! I’ll show you.” Barney snatched up the tablet and started mashing out feverish text commands:
“‘Post-grunge quartet Rabid Hedgehog performing shirtless in a dilapidated meatpacking plant. Harsh lighting rakes across sweat-soaked, snarling faces. Lead singer Hazza suspended upside-down from rusty meat hook, hair extensions fanning like a demented sirens banner. Guitar riffs distorting into pure nascent nightmare’…how’s that, you drongo?”
They both gaped at the resulting image, a terrifying masterpiece of harshly-lit, meat-hooked heavy metal hell. Nige’s face drained of color, his perm seeming to deflate in silent horror.
“Nige, you just blew my mind almost as much as that daft perm of yours,” said Barney with an appreciative nod. “But admit it – no AI, no matter how smart, could ever fully replicate the beautiful, disgusting chaos of a real-life gig by us absolute sickos!”
His mate nodded meekly, looking relieved to have his fragile reality uncorrupted by AI for one more night. The pair lapsed into a contemplative silence, pondering photography’s evolving future and the enduring power of human stubbornness.
That is, until Rabid Hedgehog’s dressing room cameras captured the rest of the band staggering back from an “herbal reconnoitering” mission, shirtless and trailing a suspiciously luminous smoke trail. At which point the tablet got hurled into the filthy street in abject, horrified defeat.
Damn you, AI – you’ve won this round!
