January: Winter Projects
Details on upcoming projects
This newsletter should have hit inboxes on Monday morning, but I was potty training my toddler instead, so here we are. Tardiness aside, there’s no time like the present to bring you up to speed on a project I’m planning for this year: Headshots in the Age of AI.
AI is everyone’s favorite toy to play with at the moment, and I know several people who’ve worked it into their daily lives with (as they would say) positive results. I, however, describe myself as an AI agnostic. Is there something important going on? Sure. Do I think it’s paradigm-shifting? Remains to be seen. So when I saw colleagues sharing an AI prompt to generate headshots from any picture in our company AI-themed Slack channel, I took note. What resulted was that several of my coworkers, with different ages, ethnicities, and personalities, ended up with photos that looked the same. Yes, their features looked (mostly) like how they should, but the facial expressions were identical. The clothing was identical. The body language? Also identical. Everything that made these coworkers unique was stripped away, boiled down to a generative, generic copy.
It felt like the start of a dystopian YA novel.
So, I’m resolved to explore the headshot. Why does it matter whether or not your specific personality shines through? Can a headshot be fun, authentic, and still professional? How can I capture a person’s essence in a single photo?
This quarter, I’m looking for six individuals to explore headshots that celebrate individual personality.* This project will capture what makes each of these people unique, celebrating their uniqueness. These are headshots that can absolutely be used in professional settings, but should feel like an authentic representation of who you are, something unable to be replicated or copied. Headshots that could only be you.
Interested? Fill out the interest form linked here! Or feel free to reach out to me directly with questions!
Can’t wait to get started!
-Amelia
*All participants will receive a complimentary, downloadable gallery with their photos in exchange for their time, but must be comfortable with these images being used in my portfolio/website/social media/etc.