Reality Meets AI - Balloon Photoshoot

Reality meets AI

There’s been so much talk about AI lately, from Midjourney to Adobe’s Generative Fill, people are experimenting with creating their imagery with the help of artificial intelligence. And you know what? I think that’s wonderful!

Whether people are creating the imagery that they have had in their minds with the help of completely generated content such as they do in Midjourney, or add elements with the help of Generative Fill, I feel any technological advancement that allows us to be more creative or discover different ways of creativity will create new imagery that people can love and get attached to.

Don’t get me wrong - I think there’s lots of scary stuff that can be done with AI, but I feel as photographers we have to stay open-minded when it comes to new technology. I don’t think AI will ever be able to replace the real connection between a photographer and the people in front of a lens, to tell a unique and personal story in images. Hopefully, we as humans can learn to incorporate AI in a way that benefits our creativity without giving away all of our creative power and ideas.

But enough with the philosophical ramble on the future of photography. I am huge fan of experimenting and trying things out myself and for my last photoshoot Adobe’s Generative Fill came in really handy.

The photoshoot and its challenges

So I had this idea in mind of creating a photoshoot with huge balloons to create a surreal feel to my imagery. You can find my mood board here.

I knew I would need lots of balloons placed differently to create a sense of dimension when photographing in the studio. But you know, these little brats were kind of hard to handle. Due to their size, they needed to be weighed down and taped into place so they wouldn’t fly away during the photos.

Also: it’s kind of hard to shoot portraits in close proximity near balloons, static hair is a very real problem (even though it looked incredibly funny).

Oh and one more thing: it really sucks when you don’t have enough helium on hand when you are all ready to shoot and need to blow up a ridiculous number of giant balloons. I’m usually quite structured and organized, but I was sure that the helium would be more than enough. Well, turns out I was pretty wrong.

I only ended up with three balloons and one really small one - the latter one looked looked kind of sad.

Still, I had to find some way to make the imagery work.

Styling and Colors

One thing that was incredibly helpful when creating this photoshoot was my color scheme. I knew I wanted to go for a blue backdrop that would match the balloons’ color as closely as possible. To add a touch of color I added my pink blouse as an outfit choice. Going completely monochromatic looked pretty pale due to my vampire like skin and the intense blue I chose. So working with a color contrast was the best way to go, and also the best way to direct my viewer to the center of every frame.

For my make-up I decided to try a cobalt blue eyeliner to underline (oh wow) the color scheme and incorporate a little more blue into my look.

So luckily my outfit choices worked out, but still I had to figure out how to make the balloons look really fun and cool - even though I didn’t actually have enough balloons.

Photoshop saved the day

I have to admit: I am only now starting to really love Photoshop (not sponsored btw!).

For the longest time I was pretty overwhelmed with its endless possibilities and would only do the things I was used to and immediately knew how to do. But since the last couple of months I have been really enjoying to be more creative in post-production, from re-coloring buildings to adding interesting elements to my imagery.

For my balloon photoshoot I used Photoshop’s Generative Fill feature. And it worked like a charm.

Before

After

All I did was roughly selected myself with the help of the Lasso tool, after which I inverted the selection. I then clicked on ‘generative fill’ and prompted “add blue plastic balls”. Sounds weird, I know.

First I tried “add blue balloons” of course, but this led to lots of balloon strings being in the picture. Also GF added the typical balloon shape, which I was trying to avoid all along by choosing the giant round ones.

After GF did it’s thing I matched the balloon colors as closely as possible to the intense blue I was going for.

It was incredibly easy and such a fun process! I feel like my generated imagery has a surreal touch, which fits this photoshoot perfectly. It also adds way more interest to the image, as there’s so much more to explore.

Before

After

What I truly love about these images is the mixture of reality with AI. Of course this would have been possible with Photoshop years ago, but I would have also taken so much more time to create the imagery and make it look good. AI is a real help when it comes to editing and retouching photography and can save hours of valuable time.

To be excited by a photograph I need to see what I’m photographing. I need to feel the vibe, experiment with compositions and expressions. That’s why generating the whole thing wouldn’t have worked for me at all. I need to feel some kind of connection the work that I am doing and I love how you can now enhance your real work with AI to give it a little something extra.

Let me know your thoughts on AI, Photoshop and everything in between :)

Thank you so much for reading!

x

Anna