Photography Must Now Survive AI-Generated Images, Two Centuries After Niépce

Key facts

• Nicéphore Niépce created the first photograph, Point de vue du Gras, in 1827 in Burgundy using a pewter plate coated with bitumen of Judea and lavender essence.
• Louis Daguerre improved photographic precision in 1839, but each daguerreotype remained unique.
• William Henry Fox Talbot invented the reproducible negative, enabling photography to multiply.
• Yves Klein's 1960 work Le Saut dans le vide was made by combining two separate photographs, an early example of photographic manipulation.
• Smartphone photography and selfies have led to the accumulation of thousands of images per person, raising questions about which will be remembered.
• AI now allows the creation of people who never existed, wars that never happened, and landscapes that don't exist—photographs without a camera or reality.
• The article questions whether photography has its own Mona Lisa, citing Migrant Mother, Alberto Korda's Che, and Steve McCurry's Afghan Girl.
• The text notes that a photograph becomes iconic through thousands of reproductions and multiple prints, unlike the unique Mona Lisa.