Melbourne photographers fight AI

AI is challenging photographers to fight for their businesses, Zeke Ashby reports.

Photo courtesy: Media from Wix

The explosion of GenAI image generators has forced Melbourne photographers to adapt to a new normal as the Victorian Labor government continues to decrease art funding.

The former Allen government has made AI and subsequent data centres a priority, attracting an estimated $7 billion of investment from data centre operator AirTrunk alone. In its AI Mission Statement, the state government described Victoria as "a leading AI hub in the Asia Pacific region."

Commercial photographer Michelle Williams is completing a PhD on how AI is affecting her industry. She said that many commercial photography studios have shut down because they are losing clients to AI. "A colleague had an e-commerce studio with 20 employees shooting products," she said. The studio closed recently after most clients left and began using AI instead.

Swinburne Lecturer in Communication Design, Dr Kate Robertson, also studies image technologies and image ethics and is confident that photographers will adapt to an AI world, but warns that entry-level jobs might look completely different. "Things like stock photography will probably not be needed anymore," she said, "but there are jobs that are coming up… (like) asking photographers to shoot content for (AI) databases."

Michelle Williams is more skeptical about those jobs, saying if they are advertised, the pay is low. "I'd probably advise a student to charge more than that to photograph a real job for a client, because there's a lot of labour, experience and skill that goes into that," she said.

Public Art Curator Bernadette Alibrando says photographers are vital in providing the human eye on an image. She added that photographers don't just take a photo, they obsess over it and perfect it. "[They are] the person who actually has the need, it's not a want, it's a need to make," she said, "And as a society… we need them too."

Alibrando recently curated a public photography festival in Maribyrnong which featured photographers with a connection to the local area. Some of the artworks were displayed on lightboxes which not only kept them visible at all hours, but it also provided a level of safety to local streets. Alibrando said, "public art is wonderful because it's accessible to everybody, regardless of where you live, how much you earn, where you come from, what language you speak."

The exhibition supported local artists at a time when arts funding is continuously being cut. Creative Victoria funding has dropped by over $20 million since 2022, falling from $81.2 million in 2022 to $59.4 million in 2026. The festival was also originally intended to be in collaboration with the organisation, PHOTO Australia, but they closed operation before the festival opened, citing increasing costs and lack of funding.

Dr Robertson calls on the government to do more to support and invest in photographers. "The Australian government [doesn't] value the arts as much as they should, and consistently decreasing funding doesn't prove otherwise," she said.

To keep photography alive, Bernadette Alibrando says, "we need to support our artists. We need to make sure that they are funded and have the freedom and ability to create art that is appreciated."

Dr Robertson went one step further, suggesting supporters "go to galleries, buy their books, buy their prints," she said, "[because] creativity has a value."