Vernon Chalmers Approach Toward AI Photography

Vernon Chalmers’ approach toward AI in photography exemplifies a rare synthesis of philosophical depth, ethical responsibility, and technological fluency.

Flower with Canon EOS 6D Mark II / EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM Lens

"The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into photography has redefined both the technological and philosophical dimensions of image-making. Vernon Chalmers, a South African photographer, educator, and theorist, has contributed a nuanced and ethically grounded perspective on the role of AI within contemporary photographic practice. Rooted in his existential-phenomenological framework, Chalmers’ approach toward AI reflects a balanced synthesis of pragmatic adoption, ethical transparency, and reflective engagement with technology. This paper explores Chalmers’ approach to AI in photography through four dimensions: (1) technical integration, (2) ethical considerations, (3) philosophical implications, and (4) opportunities and threats. The discussion situates Chalmers within broader debates on the authenticity of digital imagery, the evolution of photographic ontology, and the existential implications of AI-driven creative practice. The paper concludes that Chalmers’ framework offers an essential ethical and philosophical model for future photographers navigating the intersection of human consciousness and machine intelligence.

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become one of the most transformative forces in the history of photography. From the automation of focus and exposure systems to generative image synthesis and algorithmic post-production, AI technologies are reshaping the photographer’s relationship with the image, the subject, and the act of seeing itself (Flusser, 2000; Manovich, 2020). For Vernon Chalmers, a Cape Town–based photographer, educator, and philosophical thinker, this transformation represents not merely a technical revolution but an existential and ethical challenge. Chalmers’ approach toward AI in photography emerges from a deep engagement with phenomenology, existential philosophy, and the lived experience of photographic presence (Chalmers, 2024a).

This paper examines Chalmers’ perspective through a formal academic analysis, structured into four major sections: (1) the technical integration of AI into photography; (2) the ethical foundations guiding his practice; (3) the philosophical and existential dimensions of AI as they relate to human perception and authenticity; and (4) an assessment of the opportunities and threats that AI poses to the photographic discipline. Drawing upon Chalmers’ published reflections, educational resources, and conceptual essays (Chalmers, 2024a; 2024b; 2025a), as well as relevant philosophical and media-theoretical literature, this analysis positions his approach as a case study in responsible technological adoption.

Technical Integration: The Pragmatic Dimension of AI in Photography

Chalmers acknowledges AI as a pervasive and evolving force within modern camera systems, digital processing tools, and creative workflows. He identifies AI not as a futuristic abstraction but as a contemporary technological reality embedded in the daily operations of photography (Chalmers, 2024a). His practical engagement with AI can be understood across two main domains: camera-based automation and post-processing enhancement.

AI in Camera Systems

In Chalmers’ analysis, modern digital cameras - such as Canon’s mirrorless systems - are already deeply AI-dependent. Features such as facial recognition, eye-tracking, and predictive autofocus are powered by machine learning algorithms trained to identify and anticipate movement (Canon, 2023). Chalmers (2024a) regards these systems as natural extensions of photographic practice, particularly beneficial for his specialization in bird-in-flight photography, where precision and speed are paramount. Rather than resisting such automation, he interprets it as an augmentation of human capability: the camera becomes a collaborative agent rather than an intrusive machine.

This pragmatic acceptance aligns with Vilém Flusser’s (2000) argument that the camera functions as a “technical apparatus” that both constrains and expands creative freedom. For Chalmers, AI-enhanced autofocus embodies this paradox: it automates certain perceptual processes but also enables new forms of responsiveness to the world.

AI in Post-Processing

Chalmers extends his selective engagement with AI to the domain of post-processing. He employs AI-powered applications such as Adobe Lightroom Classic, Topaz Photo AI, and Microsoft’s integrated photo enhancement tools (Chalmers, 2024a). However, his use is guided by a clear boundary: AI may be used for “natural enhancements” only, not for synthetic generation or manipulation of subjects. The distinction he draws between enhancement and fabrication is crucial. Enhancement serves perception - it clarifies and refines the image—whereas fabrication, in his view, risks erasing the original phenomenological encounter between photographer and subject.

Equally significant is Chalmers’ commitment to transparency. He explicitly declares on his professional platforms that any photograph subjected to substantial AI processing will be clearly identified (Chalmers, 2024b). This form of disclosure represents a moral stance grounded in integrity and trust. The transparency principle aligns with emerging ethical frameworks in digital art that advocate for labeling AI-assisted content to preserve viewer autonomy (Elgammal, 2023).

Through these practices, Chalmers constructs a model of ethical pragmatism: AI is neither wholly rejected nor embraced without reflection. Instead, it is integrated under the condition that human intention, authorship, and perceptual authenticity remain central.

Ethical Considerations: Authenticity, Responsibility, and Ownership

At the core of Chalmers’ position is an ethical philosophy of photography. His reflections on AI’s ethical challenges form one of the most detailed articulations of moral responsibility within contemporary photographic discourse.

Authenticity and Photographic Truth

Chalmers’ principal ethical concern is authenticity. He warns against the proliferation of “fabricated realities” created by generative AI tools, which can produce visually convincing but ontologically false images (Chalmers, 2024b). This concern echoes the postmodern anxieties expressed by Jean Baudrillard (1994) regarding the “hyperreal” - representations that replace rather than reflect reality. In Chalmers’ view, photography must remain a truthful witness to the world, not a generator of simulated scenes divorced from lived experience.

AI’s power to manipulate visual data challenges the very premise of photographic truth. Susan Sontag (1977) once argued that a photograph’s authority rests on its indexicality—the trace of reality it captures. Generative AI, by contrast, severs this trace. Chalmers’ insistence on using AI only for enhancement, not creation, is therefore an ethical defense of photography’s ontological integrity.

Transparency and Disclosure

Chalmers (2024b) mandates that photographers disclose the use of AI when it materially affects the outcome of an image. Transparency ensures accountability and preserves the trust relationship between creator and audience. This stance aligns with broader ethical recommendations proposed by the European Commission (2022) for responsible AI use in creative industries, which emphasize disclosure, traceability, and respect for human oversight.

Transparency also serves an educational purpose: by revealing when AI has intervened, Chalmers teaches audiences to discern between images as experiential records and as computational constructs. Such awareness becomes increasingly crucial in an era of visual misinformation and deepfakes (Raji & Buolamwini, 2019).

Authorship, Ownership, and Intellectual Property

Chalmers (2024b) also addresses the emerging issue of authorship in AI-assisted photography. If an image is significantly generated by machine intelligence, who holds creative ownership—the human operator or the algorithmic system? This question, which has spurred ongoing legal and philosophical debate (Crawford, 2021), receives from Chalmers a balanced response: AI tools should remain subordinate to human creative agency. Ownership thus remains with the photographer, provided the image originates from a human-captured source.

Through this principle, Chalmers distinguishes between AI-generated art (machine creativity) and AI-assisted photography (human creativity enhanced by computation). His insistence on human-centered authorship preserves the moral and legal coherence of the photographic act.

Broader Ethical Contexts

Beyond individual integrity, Chalmers situates AI ethics within a societal context. He recognizes that automation may threaten employment in the creative sector, as AI systems increasingly perform tasks once reserved for human photographers and editors (Chalmers, 2024c). Moreover, he acknowledges the ethical risks of surveillance and privacy violations facilitated by AI-powered facial recognition. His concern resonates with the warnings of Zuboff (2019) regarding the rise of “surveillance capitalism.”

In all these respects, Chalmers’ ethics of AI photography converge on a single axiom: technological power must remain accountable to human responsibility.

Philosophical Framing: Existential and Phenomenological Dimensions

To understand Chalmers’ approach fully, it must be situated within his broader philosophical orientation - what he terms Applied Existential Photography (Chalmers, 2025a). For Chalmers, photography is not merely a technical craft but a form of existential reflection—a way of engaging with being, time, and perception.

Photography as Reflective Consciousness

Drawing upon existentialist thought from Heidegger (1962) and Sartre (1943), Chalmers conceptualizes photography as an act of being-in-the-world. The photographer’s gaze is a moment of presence that mediates between self and environment. Within this framework, AI presents both an opportunity and a threat: it can extend human perception, but it can also mediate experience to such an extent that it replaces direct perception with algorithmic inference.

For Chalmers (2025a), the challenge is to ensure that AI remains a facilitator of presence rather than its substitute. He warns that if photographers rely excessively on AI automation, they risk disengaging from the act of seeing - the very essence of phenomenological photography. His stance recalls Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s (1964) notion of perception as an embodied and intentional act, grounded in the lived world rather than abstract computation.

Ontological Shifts in the Photographic Process

Chalmers (2025b) argues that AI signifies a profound ontological shift in photography. Whereas traditional photography recorded light reflected from real objects, AI now allows images to emerge from datasets and probabilistic inference. The photograph ceases to be a “trace of reality” and becomes a synthetic simulation of possibility.

This transformation challenges what Roland Barthes (1981) called the punctum - the emotional and existential “sting” of the photograph that authenticates the real. In AI-generated imagery, that punctum may be absent, replaced by calculated coherence. Chalmers’ commitment to authenticity can thus be seen as an attempt to preserve the phenomenological vitality of photography against its computational abstraction.

AI and the Stages of Intelligence

Chalmers (2025a) distinguishes between three levels of artificial intelligence: Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI), Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), and Artificial Superintelligence (ASI). Current photographic tools operate at the ANI level, performing domain-specific tasks like focus tracking or denoising. AGI, by contrast, would entail machines with human-equivalent reasoning, while ASI would exceed human cognition entirely.

Chalmers warns that the advent of AGI or ASI could destabilize photography’s ontological basis. If a super-intelligent system could generate infinitely realistic images without any grounding in physical reality, photography might lose its existential purpose as a witness to the world. In this scenario, photography would become a simulacrum of perception, not its expression. His concern mirrors Nick Bostrom’s (2014) philosophical argument that superintelligence may not only outthink humans but redefine the parameters of creativity itself.

Chalmers’ position thus combines technological literacy with philosophical vigilance: he acknowledges the inevitability of AI’s evolution but insists on continual ethical reflection as its counterpart.

Opportunities and Threats: Chalmers’ Balanced Assessment

Chalmers’ writings on “AI Opportunities and Threats to Photography” (2024c) reveal his dual stance: cautious optimism and reflective concern. He identifies both the potential benefits and existential risks associated with AI in photography.

Opportunities

AI offers several tangible advantages for photographers. Chalmers (2024c) highlights the following:

• Technical Enhancement: AI-driven noise reduction, sharpening, and tonal adjustments enable photographers to achieve higher-quality results with less manual intervention.

• Efficiency: Automated tagging, sorting, and image management streamline professional workflows.

• Restoration and Preservation: AI can restore damaged photographs, contributing to cultural and historical preservation.

• Accessibility: AI-based tools lower technical barriers, allowing more individuals to participate in creative production.

• Creative Inspiration: Generative algorithms may serve as sources of conceptual exploration, inspiring new ideas without replacing human creativity.

These opportunities demonstrate Chalmers’ pragmatic acceptance of AI as an enabler of creative and pedagogical advancement.

Threats and Risks

Chalmers (2024c) simultaneously identifies critical threats:

• Job Displacement: As AI automates editing and production, professional photographers risk losing economic stability.

• Skill Erosion: Overreliance on automation may diminish foundational knowledge of exposure, composition, and manual technique.

• Privacy Violations: AI’s capacity for biometric recognition poses serious privacy concerns.

• Ethical Manipulation: Deepfake technology threatens visual credibility and can be exploited for misinformation.

• Ontological Crisis: The replacement of real-world witnessing with AI-generated imagery endangers photography’s existential core.

This balance of optimism and caution embodies what could be termed existential pragmatism: a willingness to adapt technologically while maintaining an awareness of the human condition that grounds the photographic act.

Chalmers’ Ethical–Philosophical Framework

Synthesizing Chalmers’ discussions, one can identify a coherent ethical-philosophical framework for responsible AI integration in photography:

• Human Agency: AI should serve as an extension of human consciousness, not its replacement.

• Transparency: Disclosure of AI involvement preserves trust and authenticity.

• Moderation: Use AI for enhancement, not fabrication.

• Accountability: The photographer remains morally and legally responsible for outcomes.

• Education: Photographers must be trained not only in technical proficiency but also in ethical reasoning.

• Foresight: Continuous reflection on the future trajectory of AI ensures preparedness for ontological disruption.

This framework situates Chalmers’ practice within a broader humanistic tradition. Like Don Ihde’s (1990) postphenomenology, Chalmers’ philosophy acknowledges technology as mediating human-world relations, but insists that meaning and responsibility remain irreducibly human.

Implications for Photographic Practice and Education

Chalmers’ framework carries significant implications for the photographic community.

Educational Reform

As a photography educator, Chalmers advocates integrating AI literacy and ethics into photographic curricula (Chalmers, 2024a). This approach parallels global initiatives in digital literacy, which stress critical reflection on algorithmic systems (UNESCO, 2023). For Chalmers, education must go beyond teaching camera operation - it must cultivate awareness of how technology shapes perception, agency, and truth.

Professional Practice

His insistence on labeling AI-modified images anticipates potential professional standards for AI transparency in creative industries. Institutions such as the World Press Photo Foundation (2024) have begun exploring such guidelines to maintain journalistic integrity. Chalmers’ model could inform similar ethical codes within both art and documentary photography.

Philosophical Reflection

Finally, Chalmers’ existential perspective invites photographers to reflect on why they create images at all. By positioning photography as an act of being and awareness, he challenges practitioners to resist technological determinism. In doing so, he echoes Martin Heidegger’s (1977) warning that technology should never obscure the question of meaning.

Conclusion

Vernon Chalmers’ approach toward AI in photography exemplifies a rare synthesis of philosophical depth, ethical responsibility, and technological fluency. His reflections transcend simplistic debates about whether AI is “good” or “bad” for photography. Instead, he asks a more fundamental question: What does it mean to see, to witness, and to create in an age of intelligent machines?

Chalmers’ answer is neither nostalgic nor naïve. He accepts AI as an inevitable and potentially enriching development, yet insists that human consciousness must remain central to the photographic act. His commitment to authenticity, transparency, and existential reflection forms a moral compass for navigating AI’s rapid evolution.

In a world increasingly saturated with algorithmically generated images, Chalmers’ philosophy of applied existential photography serves as an ethical anchor - a reminder that photography’s ultimate purpose is not the perfection of representation, but the cultivation of awareness, presence, and responsibility. As AI continues to shape the visual landscape, Chalmers’ framework provides a path forward: one where technological sophistication and philosophical integrity coexist in creative balance." (Source: ChatGPT 2025)

References

Barthes, R. (1981). Camera lucida: Reflections on photography. Hill and Wang.

Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and simulation. University of Michigan Press.

Bostrom, N. (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, dangers, strategies. Oxford University Press.

Canon. (2023). Deep learning technology in autofocus systems. Canon Global Press.

Chalmers, V. (2024a). Vernon Chalmers Photography AI Statement. Retrieved from https://www.vernonchalmers.photography/p/vernon-chalmers-photography-ai.html

Chalmers, V. (2024b). The ethics of AI photography. Retrieved from https://www.vernonchalmers.photography/2024/08/the-ethics-of-ai-photography.html

Chalmers, V. (2024c). AI opportunities and threats to photography. Retrieved from https://www.vernonchalmers.photography/2024/08/ai-opportunities-and-threats-to.html

Chalmers, V. (2025a). Applied existential photography: Philosophy and practice. Retrieved from https://www.vernonchalmers.photography/2025/07/applied-existential-photography.html

Chalmers, V. (2025b). The theory of modern photographic process. Retrieved from https://www.vernonchalmers.photography/2025/03/the-theory-of-modern-photographic.html

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Flusser, V. (2000). Towards a philosophy of photography. Reaktion Books.

Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Harper & Row.

Heidegger, M. (1977

Image: At Kirstenbosch Garden Copyright Vernon Chalmers Photography