01:50:12 · John Coogan, Derek Blasberg, Apoorva Mehta, Jordi Hays
[01:50:12] S1: In art collecting, fashion photography, reaching into that Christie Sotheby's world a little bit more? [01:50:18] S4: So he... Apadon's really credited with a couple of other photographers, including Irving Penn, which was sort of his frenemy. They they sort of came up the same time. He did a lot for Harper's Bazaar while Irving Penn's entire career was spent at Vogue. Mhmm. Avedon joined Vogue Mhmm. Later with Diana Vreeland. These are... [01:50:37] S3: Mhmm. [01:50:37] S4: There's maybe one or two people who are following me on this on this name... [01:50:41] S0: TBPN of fashion would have been putting up like traded cars for these moves. That's what I... That's how closely I'm following. [01:50:50] S4: Prediction market for how long will stay in In this [01:50:54] S1: a different world historical prediction markets, for sure. [01:50:56] S3: But he [01:50:56] S4: was one of the first guys to try and establish photography as a fine art medium. Sure. And it's tricky because of course when there are negatives Yeah. You can duplicate things [01:51:04] S1: Of course. [01:51:05] S4: In a different process [01:51:05] S0: Yeah. [01:51:06] S4: Than say a painter. [01:51:07] S1: Yeah. [01:51:07] S4: So when he dies Mhmm. His estate prevents the posthumous printing of photographs. So it's like... Yeah. The show, when you come to tonight, you'll see the pictures have all been printed by him in his lifetime and signed. Mhmm. So there is like this [01:51:22] S3: It's finite.
01:51:22 · Apoorva Mehta, Derek Blasberg, Anish Agarwal, Jordi Hays, John Coogan
[01:51:22] S3: It's finite. [01:51:23] S4: A finite amount of of images. Mhmm. And there are other photographers who have since passed away after him who have modeled their estate and their, you know, their market value. [01:51:35] S6: Yeah. [01:51:35] S4: On that sort of pretext. [01:51:37] S0: Yeah. But there's other photographers that when they die, they sell their their negatives and their rights to their images to like Getty Images. [01:51:44] S4: Yeah. And you can you can go on Getty Images right now and buy a Slim Aarons picture of [01:51:48] S1: Mhmm. [01:51:48] S0: The bathers at the Hotel Du Cap in the South Of France for like $15. [01:51:52] S1: That's cool. [01:51:52] S4: That will never be worth more than $15. [01:51:54] S1: Yeah. It might be a steal. [01:51:55] S4: But maybe. [01:51:56] S1: Might be [01:51:56] S4: nice But go the Dovima picture hopefully that Yeah. Someone bought for $2,000,000 will not be worth 15,000,000 Yeah. Of course. Of course. [01:52:02] S0: What's what surprised you, if anything, about the explosion of of AI imagery? Sort of interesting, at least in my experience. The things that I never would have gone out of my way to hire a great photographer for, I'll make images for that. But all the stuff that I historically would have hired a photographer for, I'm still hiring the photographer. I have no no demand at all to like replace those like really special moments or or things in my business with... [01:52:31] S4: AI to create like special moments or do you
01:52:31 · Derek Blasberg, Jordi Hays, Apoorva Mehta, John Coogan
[01:52:31] S4: AI to create like special moments or do you [01:52:33] S0: use I'm saying I'm saying like I'll use AI as a joke. Then and then anything that I care about, I'm like, well obviously we need to get the real image. [01:52:43] S3: Yeah. [01:52:43] S0: Right? Because it's like Yeah. It's capturing because it's like so emotional, it's like a it's a memory whether it's in like, you know, a family photoshoot or in a business context. [01:52:52] S1: Mhmm. [01:52:52] S0: Right? And so I have like no demand for what I would call serious imagery in an AI context. [01:53:00] S4: Or maybe precious. Yeah. Precious. We were when we were working on this book, you go into his archives Mhmm. And he would be shooting Marilyn Monroe, for example. And there would be like a finite amount of negatives. Because at this time, in the early sixties... She died in 1962, so he he shot her just before she passed away. Also shot her in the nineteen fifties. Film was expensive. Processing was expensive. And the biggest difference that I see when it comes to AI created images and the golden age of photography is that we have... I have like a 160,000 pictures on my phone. I've never printed them. They're totally disorganized. But the difference between then and and now is that that was, you know, you... Sometimes you would you would draw a picture before you took it, you know, you would you would not waste the film. You wouldn't waste the... Interesting. [01:53:46] S0: You're like, let's test this, basically.
01:53:46 · Jordi Hays, Derek Blasberg, John Coogan
[01:53:46] S0: You're like, let's test this, basically. [01:53:48] S4: And now I think some photographers use AI to falsify the image. Mhmm. Like if I'm taking a picture Yeah. Of Jordi. [01:53:55] S0: Oh, and then trying to recapture the real thing. [01:53:57] S4: And I would put you in a suit and try and, you know, [01:53:58] S0: dress you up a little, have a little respect for your passion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Would [01:54:04] S4: import the image and say, you know, put this guy in maybe blue suit. Yeah. Put him on Sunset Boulevard. Yeah. [01:54:10] S0: And then we would try and recreate [01:54:12] S4: that image, but hopefully better and more realistic. Yeah. Not And without like those weird facial disfigurations that you get [01:54:17] S1: Yeah. [01:54:18] S4: In in AI. Yeah. [01:54:20] S0: Fashion media feels like it's completely rejected for the most Going [01:54:25] S4: great, don't you think? Everything's going great? Magazines, paper products? [01:54:28] S0: Well well, we we actually... No. [01:54:31] S1: Completely rejected AI?
01:54:31 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Derek Blasberg
[01:54:31] S1: Completely rejected AI? [01:54:32] S0: Completely rejected rejected AI. I I can think of a handful of campaigns. Thought... I remember watching Gucci come out with this thing that looked like GTA inspired. I thought it was very weird and I thought it got like the right reaction from everybody which was like, why? Like, made made no sense to me. But the area that the area that I've heard is completely disrupted is like e commerce photography. Oh, really? And specifically impacting like LA. There's a whole industry here of like, hey, we have... We made a 100 new pieces of clothing, we need to get it photographed and different styles, models, etcetera. And I think like that is just like there's, you know, a tsunami there. [01:55:16] S4: The bigger influence of AI on the fashion business, and this is not media specific, it's designers used to make a shirt. Right? And you would have a team of people resizing and rescaling. What does that look like? What are the measurements and the sample sizes in a small, medium, large, extra large? [01:55:32] S0: Mhmm. [01:55:33] S4: Now you can pump all those numbers into OpenAI and get Sure. You know, the the idea... The scale and sizing is faster, quicker, easier, cheaper Yeah. Less human labor. [01:55:44] S1: I'm sure a lot of like the back office tasks and all that. [01:55:46] S4: And all and all that stuff is... [01:55:47] S1: Yeah. But the inspiration is still with the with the designer.
01:55:47 · John Coogan, Derek Blasberg
[01:55:47] S1: Yeah. But the inspiration is still with the with the designer. [01:55:51] S4: And I also think a lot of designers now will sometimes... And I don't know if this will be ultimately beneficial to the creative process. And this is something that a... You could have a designer on here to argue with you about. But, like, let's say, if I'm a fashion designer and I'm inspired by, you know, Silicon Valley, JFK in the '19 Like you... Sometimes you could import all this stuff in Yeah. Into whatever open AI or Yeah. Program Yeah. Help [01:56:17] S1: We've seen some odd odd dynamics playing out in the in the car world where there's there's one Lamborghini that people are speculating like might have been designed with AI and and they think it doesn't... [01:56:28] S4: That the little one that Marc Newson one? [01:56:30] S1: No. No. No. So so that is Ferrari. Right. And that is very clearly not designed with AI. And when it came out, everyone was making AI versions of that car and [01:56:40] S4: said Okay.