Defining Landscape
What Counts as Landscape
Landscape photography is the photographic portrayal of all elements of the land, sea and sky, whether natural, built or influenced by human endeavour.
Examples span the natural and the built environment alike:
Images may be created using traditional or other techniques, including but not limited to infrared, multiple exposures, intentional camera movement, abstraction, minimalism and post-processing.
Authorship
AI and the Photographic Image
The Group welcomes a wide range of photographic approaches, but a submitted image must be photographic in origin. Two very different things are often both called AI, and it helps to keep them apart.
Assistive AI
Acceptable
Assistive AI helps you record what is in front of the lens: autofocus and subject tracking, scene recognition, exposure and noise handling. It is now built into most modern cameras and phones. It changes how easily the light is captured, not what is captured. The pixels still originate from the light reaching the sensor, or the image formed on film, so the photographic nature of the image is unaffected.
Generative AI
Not Photographic
Generative AI is different in kind. It is a complex computational algorithm, running on the camera or phone, on your computer, or in the cloud, trained on vast quantities of existing images to recognise patterns and then generate entirely new pixels. Those pixels are calculated, not recorded from light, so they are not photographic in nature. This includes generative image-making, with or without a text prompt, and generative editing such as the generative fill and generative remove tools in Adobe and similar software.
Why It Matters
Because generative processes create pixels that were never photographed, they directly affect the authenticity, authorship and accountability of an image. Check the labels your post-processing software uses, and be aware of which tools are generative. If you are not sure whether a tool is generative, do not use it: that is the safest way to protect your position.
Work created using generative AI is not permitted in the Group's competitions. Standard, non-generative post-processing remains entirely acceptable.
Become a Member
A friendly community advancing the art of landscape photography. New members are always welcome.
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