Discover Astonishing Views Through Photos

"Is that a real photo, or is it AI generated?" It's a question that comes up more often these days, and it's a fair one — especially as tools for enhancing and generating images have exploded in the last few years. I want to be transparent about how AI fits into my own work, because I think the answer is more interesting than people expect.

AI Starts or Adds to a Real Photograph

Every piece I create either begins with an actual photograph idea— a real place, a real moment, captured through a camera lens, or an AI generated background where I add my photographs. That distinction matters to me. The foundation of the work generally has a photo image within it.

Add AI and Enhancement Tools

From there, modern editing and AI-assisted tools help bring out what the original capture doesn't fully show — refining color, depth, light, and detail in ways that elevate the image closer to how interpreted the scene rather than just how a camera sensor recorded it. Think of it less like generating a fictional scene and more like using a digital darkroom like photographers have used for as long as the medium has existed, just with far more precise tools.

Tradition Meets Technology

This approach — real photography enhanced through digital and AI-assisted techniques — is what caught the attention of USA Today, which featured my work in a piece exploring how artists are blending traditional photography with emerging technology. It's a conversation happening across the art world right now: where's the line between a photograph and a digital creation, and does that line even matter if the final piece is honest about its process?

Why Transparency

I'm upfront about the role AI and digital tools play in my process. A collector or business purchasing a piece should understand what they're buying: artistic photographs thoughtfully enhanced with colors, characters, and shapes for interesting compositions. The end limited edition images make the final prints entertaining and meaningful.

The Result

The goal has never been to replace photography with AI — it's to use every tool available to get an image as close as possible to the feeling of the moment it was captured. Whether that moment was a crane taking flight over a Roswell waterfall or the exact instant light hit a Santorini caldera, the technology is used to enhance photographs, not a substitute for them.

See the Work for Yourself

Browse the full collection in the View Finder Arts gallery and see how tradition and technology come together in many of these pieces.