Wilton and Wilshire

For some time now, I’ve used the Adobe Lightroom mobile app to edit photos I take on my phone, such as this one snapped today on my drive home. However, when I went to edit the photo upon getting home, Adobe had an update to promote to me:

On Lightroom Desktop and Mobile, the headline feature is Generative Expand, which Adobe first rolled out in Photoshop in mid-2023. The tool uses generative AI to extend a photo beyond its original borders, filling transparent areas created by perspective adjustments or making room for new aspect ratios without leaving blank edges

The Generative UI in question

There’s plenty of debate about AI ‘art,’ even though most people who are pro-AI have little to no appreciation for creative process or results—however when it comes to photography, using Generative AI is somehow more offensive. Photography, by its fundamental nature, is documentation. Evidence. An account of reality, interpreted through a lens certainly, but otherwise, nothing that exists in a photograph was not in the scene that was shot.

To use Gen AI in any kind of photographic tool is to go against the very nature of photography. While the people who are shoving AI down our throats at every corner have absolutely no appreciation for the nature of the foundations of how we make things, they also disregard why we make them, or how significant these processes and results are to the relationship humanity has to itself and the world.

People promoting AI exist completely within the idea of technologically-driven bubbles that serve purposes of, well, I don’t even know, coordinating meetings better? Client pitches? Coding apps? A projected version of the world that doesn’t exist but serves the idea of selfish indulgence? Certainly nothing honest, nothing dignified, nothing human.

While there are likely ballistic wars coming over resources such as water, wealth, energy, and political domain, there’s this brewing existential, intangible conflict about the fundamental nature of how we relate to one another, how we share reality, how we celebrate it, and what it actually comprises that is becoming an increasingly depressing landscape.

The Grove

On The Sidewalk

Swap Meet

I live in a pretty rough-and-tumble part of LA now, so on days when I go to see a movie and the theater is in a upper-middle-class outdoor mall, it can be quite a diverse experience of people-watching.

Richter and Key, in a photo that totally makes Key look fatter than she is (I doubt she will mind)

Sometimes I get half-heartedly resentful at these two because owning cats means I can’t just leave my world behind and move to Slovenia on a dime, but then one of them does something funny and my plans to abandon America fade.

I’ve known since I was young that I always wanted cats—and, later on, maybe some goats—as opposed to kids, and I think that’s an okay thing to admit. Children aren’t for everyone (and not that pets are, either—it’s all just preference).

Jackie-O Motherfucker live at Zebulon

I can’t tell if this is an I’m just getting old complaint, but last night at the JOMF show, three bands were set to play and doors opened at eight, with Jackie-O’s headlining set scheduled for 10:20 pm. To me that’s just wild, especially given the first band went on after a 20 minute delay. A Thursday night show with three bands taking as many hours to wrap up—two of which had 20-30 minute sets—is just way too long.

Again, though, maybe I’m just getting old, and it was nice to hear “Hey! Mr. Sky” live.

Frogtown is an interesting neighborhood because during the day it is abuzz with people walking along the river, but at night it remains relatively quiet. Events might be happening at various hot spots, and there might be limited parking, but it’s one of the places in LA where there just aren’t a ton of people wandering. It keeps pretty quiet once the sun sets, sort of like you have to know what’s happening where to actually run in to anyone. I saw maybe three people on my walk to a sold-out Big | Brave show at Zebulon.