by Hope Cruz

I want to live where soul meets body
And let the sun wrap its arms around me
And bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing
And feel, feel what it's like to be new

These opening lines from a Death Cab for Cutie song tap into something many of us feel deeply, something that speaks to our shared humanity. It’s the longing to feel something real, to know we’re grounded in something true, and to be changed by the experience. In a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence (AI), that longing feels more urgent, as the line between authenticity and artifice grows increasingly blurry.

In photography, AI plays a growing role in shaping how images are made. Many photographers now integrate AI into their workflows for tasks like color correction, culling, tagging, and focus tracking. It also supports creative planning through mockups and mood boards. One area that has been gaining increasing attention is generative AI, where entire photorealistic images are created from text prompts. The results can be impressive, though they raise important questions about truth, authenticity, and intention.

To understand the dilemma, we have to remember that photography has never been immune to manipulation. From early techniques like hand-tinting and composite printing to digital editing and filters, photographers have long used tools to shape not just how an image looks, but how it feels. Does this make a photo inauthentic? Not necessarily. The question of what makes a photograph real or truthful has always been part of the medium. No matter how raw or unedited, a photo is never pure reality because it’s always filtered through a photographer’s perspective.

Some of the most iconic images in history reflect this tension between truth and interpretation. Dorothea Lange, who documented the Great Depression, and Frank Hurley, a World War I photographer, didn’t just record events. They crafted emotional realities meant to be felt as much as seen.

Hurley understood this over a century ago. He believed a single exposure couldn’t capture the magnitude of war, so he created composite images from multiple negatives. One of his most famous, Battle of Zonnebeke (1918) , combined bomb blasts, soldiers, biplanes, and a devastated landscape into one single dramatic frame. It didn’t show events exactly as they happened, but it was believable and emotionally charged, enough that it sparked debate about whether it was ethical. Hurley’s work was an early example of the questions we are trying to reconcile with AI today. He blurred the line between fact and feeling, just as AI-generated images now challenge our sense of what’s real.

Lange’s Migrant Mother (1936) reveals the same tension in a different way. Though rooted in a real moment, the image was carefully composed. Lange chose the framing, guided the subjects’ poses, and cropped the background to heighten the emotional impact, capturing the hardship many Americans faced during the Great Depression. The result was truthful, but undeniably shaped with intention. Ultimately, her photography struck a national nerve, which stirred empathy and helped mobilize government aid.

These historical examples remind us that photos are built from choices. The camera records light, but the photographer shapes meaning. What’s new is how AI amplifies the scale, speed, and subtlety of creating images. It can generate scenes that feel real, complete with lighting, composition, and a sense of atmosphere, even though the moment never existed outside the output of an algorithm.

So how are photographers navigating this shift? There isn’t a single answer when the technology is evolving this fast. That’s why I turned to our Think Tank Pro Team to ask for their insights. Their responses don’t offer a final verdict, but they do open a thoughtful dialogue about staying grounded in truth while embracing innovation.

For Lisbon-based photographer, João Carlos, this tension is personal and present. With roots in fashion, fine art, and advertising, João works with a distinct visual language and a strong sense of narrative. His recent series, Stages of Isolation and Stages of Depression, uses large sculptural props and emotionally charged self-portraits to explore the quiet weight of internal struggle, emotional depth and human fragility.

When I first saw the images, I assumed they were hybrids of AI and photography. They looked surreal. João clarified that every element was real. The domes, which appear rendered by AI, were actually large physical studio props. He also highlighted, “I’m actually the model myself. That made the process even more emotionally demanding and personal, and definitely not something that could be generated or recreated artificially.”

João isn’t against AI. He experimented with it early in his process, using it to generate low-res mockups, as a kind of sketchbook to explore mood and composition. “The results were nowhere near what I envisioned,” he said, “but they helped shape the direction I wanted to take with real photography.” For João, AI can be a useful tool, but it has limits. “You can replicate aesthetics,” he explained, “but you can’t replicate presence.” His work suggests that while AI can mimic form, it’s the photographer’s conscious intent that gives an image its lasting impression.

That perspective is shared by Melbourne-based travel portrait photographer Glynn Lavender. For Glynn, the value of an image lies in the journey it takes to get there. His work is rooted in the joy of chasing moments when light, subject, and emotion come together in a way that can’t be planned or staged.

Whether photographing a young novice Buddhist monk in Bagan or a child caught in the kinetic color of Holi—the Hindu festival of color—Glynn finds meaning in the process itself. AI, he notes, can produce a flawless image with a few prompts, but that kind of perfection strips away the very thing that makes photography satisfying. “Would a golfer keep playing if every hole was a hole in one?” he asked. The joy comes from the pursuit, the waiting, the effort, the uncertainty, not the shortcut.

Other photographers feel the weight of truth in times of crisis. Lt. Volodymyr Petrov, a Ukrainian military officer and documentary photographer, is currently serving during Russia’s war against Ukraine. When we spoke, his outlook on the future of photojournalism was marked by exhaustion and disillusionment. Volodymyr is deeply committed to photography, yet he questioned whether the truth captured through a lens still holds weight in a world where images can be manipulated or replaced.

“Photojournalism is on a slippery slope with artificial intelligence,” he said. “We live in a world that doesn’t necessarily want the truth.” He recalled a recent World Press Photo contest where several entries were disqualified for alterations that undermined their authenticity. “What is too much? What is enough?” he asked. Even respected institutions are struggling to define those lines. The boundary between authenticity and artifice is becoming harder to defend even in places designed to uphold it.

So if photography can be so easily altered, can we still trust it to tell the truth? For Pulitzer Prize–winning photojournalist and Think Tank Photo co-founder Deanne Fitzmaurice, the answer lies in the emotional power of human connection. She believes photography’s credibility depends not just on what we see, but on who made it and why. “The question we need to ask is, what is the source of the photograph? Can it be trusted?” she explained.

Her ethical roots are grounded in traditional photojournalism, where editing follows strict standards. Even as digital tools became widespread, only basic adjustments were permitted: density, contrast, color balance, cropping. Deanne continues to honor those ethical boundaries. At the core of her conviction is a simple truth: no matter how advanced it becomes, AI can’t replicate the emotional depth of a human behind the lens. “There will always be a place,” she said, “for photography that moves people with empathy and compassion.”

That belief is reflected in the work of veteran photojournalist Al Diaz. With four decades at the Miami Herald, Diaz has spent his career navigating the line between witnessing and helping. One defining moment came on a Florida highway, where he saw Pamela Rauseo administering CPR to her infant nephew who had suddenly stopped breathing. Before lifting his camera, Diaz flagged down help and returned only when others were assisting. He paused, aware of the emotional weight of what was unfolding. “My heart did not want to inflict more stress on this traumatized woman,” he recalled.

His image of Rauseo performing CPR went viral, sparking a public push to learn the lifesaving technique. “I captured the breath of life,” he said. Diaz knew a photograph could do more than inform. It could save lives. “A still photograph can alter the course of history, influence policy, raise awareness, and prompt leaders to take action,” he said.

Yet as images become easier to fabricate, Diaz admits he no longer fully trusts photographs at first glance, which he finds deeply unfortunate. That loss of trust is part of the dilemma we now face: if an AI image looks like a real photo and still moves us, does it matter how or who made it? It does, because while emotion can be mimicked, lived experience cannot.

A painting carries the trace of the artist’s hand. A photograph reflects the eye and timing of the photographer. These forms are marked by presence, time, risk, memory, and meaning. AI feels and risks nothing. It doesn’t witness or wait. It merely generates, and while the result may look convincing, it’s missing the heart of what gives a photo its soul.

As Glynn Lavender put it, “The human condition wants real.” When he leads clients through temples during Holi, no one asks, “What prompt do I need to fake this?” They ask, “How do I immerse myself in this moment and capture what it means to me?” That’s what photography gives us. Not perfection, but presence. Not replication, but reflection. Not just how it looks, but how it felt to be there.

AI is just a tool. Like any tool since the dawn of humanity, it carries no meaning on its own. A chisel can carve a masterpiece or deface a monument. The same is true of photography. It can reveal or deceive. What matters is not the tool itself, but the hands that wield it and the heart that guides it.

Navigating AI today is complex. Photo manipulation isn’t new, but AI’s scale and speed raise the stakes. What once required presence and patience can now be generated in seconds. We’re being asked to discern more quickly, to question more deeply, but maybe that’s not a bad thing. As our discernment sharpens, so do our values. In a world filled with simulations, real things don’t fade. They become more meaningful. An authentic photograph becomes a rare treasure we can truly feel.

So we return to that quiet craving at the heart of it all: the longing to feel something real, to be changed by a moment, to live, as Death Cab for Cutie puts it, “where soul meets body.” Despite the rise of AI, human presence remains essential, and the power of authentic photography has always lived there and always will.

What about you? What’s a photo you lived through? One that asked for your presence, your patience, your heart? Maybe it reminded you: I was there. I felt that. It mattered. We’d love to hear your story.