A photographer named Miles Astray recently made headlines when he submitted a real photo instead of an AI-generated image at the 1839 Color Photography Awards.
What did the photographer do? AI programs like ChatGPT by OpenAI are becoming increasingly popular, which is often a thorn in the side of artists. Therefore, photographer Miles Astray submitted a real photo instead of an AI-generated one in the 1839 Color Photography Awards
competition in the AI category. His photo showed a flamingo on the beach.
His cheating did not immediately catch the jury’s attention, which led to him securing the bronze place with his real photo and winning the People’s Vote Award
.
I wanted to turn the story around
Why did the photographer enter the competition? His main motivation was to show that nature can still beat a machine, he explained to PetaPixel. He further reported that he had recently seen AI-generated images defeat real photos in competitions
. For this reason, he wanted to turn the story around and submitted a real photo to the competition.
How was the scam uncovered? Miles Astray himself exposed his deception by announcing on X after his victory that he had won the competition, even though his submission was a real photo. As a result, the competition organization learned about the matter and disqualified him.
Still, he is glad that his experiment confirmed his hypothesis that there is nothing more fantastic and creative than Mother Nature herself.
You can see the photographer’s photo here on x.com:
What does the organization say about the cheating? The competition is judged by individuals who work for the New York Times, Getty Images, Phaidon Press, and others. None of these individuals reportedly noticed the scam.
The organizers stated to PetaPixel that while they appreciate his powerful message
, they unfortunately had to disqualify Miles Astray for fairness reasons.
The justification for the disqualification is that each category must meet specific criteria, and his submission did not comply with these. Nevertheless, they hope that this conveys a message of hope to other photographers who are concerned about AI.
This was opposite to what happened last year at the Sony World Photography Awards. There, an artist won a photography prize, which he declined because the image was not his, but came from an AI. You can read about how that happened here: Artist impersonates “cheeky monkey”, wins prestigious photography prize – Declines because his image comes from an AI
