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Bad photographers Podcast

Bad photographers Podcast

Written by: Bad photographers
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 Welcome to Bad Photographers, the podcast where your hosts, Chris Griffin and Janiqua Robinson, drag the myths, melt the egos, and shine a very questionable light on the world of photography. This isn’t a masterclass. It’s not a gentle critique. It’s a seat at the table with two working photographers who’ve seen too much, argued too often, and still show up with cameras in our hands because we can’t help ourselves. If you’re here for honesty, humor, hard truths, and the stories that only surface when the mics are on and the guard is down... you’re in the right place. Welcome to the show!Bad photographers Art
Episodes
  • The Trials and Tribulations of the Unemployed Photographer

    The Trials and Tribulations of the Unemployed Photographer
    Feb 17 2026

    In this episode of Bad Photographers, Griff reflects on the current state of the photography industry and the lived reality of the unemployed photographer. This isn’t a story about failure—or a search for sympathy. It’s an honest look at how talent, experience, and even accolades don’t always translate into stability, and how luck, timing, and network often shape opportunity more than we’d like to admit.

    Through personal experience—from major publications to leadership roles in the industry—this conversation explores rejection, silence, and the slow grind of uncertainty. The emails that say “we’re moving in another direction.” The applications that disappear into nothing. The quiet pressure of trying to protect your creative identity while still paying the bills.

    This episode is about endurance, perspective, and staying in the work when the path forward isn’t clear. A reminder that looking back at your own growth isn’t denial—it’s evidence. That your voice still matters. That your work still counts. And that even in a brutal industry, there is a way forward for photographers and creatives who keep showing up.

    🧭 Chapters / Timestamps

    00:00 The Quiet Weight of Being Unemployed
    06:12 Talent, Timing, and the Myth of Stability
    12:40 Endurance, Identity, and a Way Forward


    #BadPhotographers #PhotographyLife #UnemployedPhotographer #CreativeCareers #FreelanceLife #PhotoIndustry #CreativeBurnout #ArtistLife #Photojournalism #StillShowingUp
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    7 mins
  • Exposed - AI, Photography, and the Collapse of Trust (Part 2)

    Exposed - AI, Photography, and the Collapse of Trust (Part 2)
    Feb 3 2026
    If Part 1 asked how trust collapsed, Part 2 asks the harder question: how do we prove reality when images can no longer speak for themselves?In Episode 2 of this two-part Bad Photographers series, we move from history into the front lines of verification, forensics, and ethics. We step inside the world of visual investigations, where photographs are treated not as content, but as evidence—cross-checked against metadata, satellite imagery, CCTV footage, weather data, and digital fingerprints.We break down how AI image models actually learn to fake reality, why detection is falling behind generation, and what it means when synthetic images begin training future systems instead of the real world. As deepfakes grow cleaner and harder to trace, truth becomes diagnostic rather than obvious.The episode then turns to the industry’s first serious attempt at rebuilding trust: the Content Provenance and Authenticity Initiative (C2PA). We explain how cryptographic metadata, edit histories, and chain-of-custody systems could allow cameras to embed proof directly into images—and why those same tools raise life-or-death concerns for journalists, whistleblowers, and people documenting abuse.From World Press Photo’s introduction of “Synthetic Narratives,” to evolving legal standards around AI authorship, disclosure, and political manipulation, this episode explores the uneasy future where photography splits into two parallel paths: verification and imagination.As AI becomes normalized as a creative medium, photographers are no longer just image-makers. They are fact-checkers, ethicists, and translators of truth. The question is no longer whether AI belongs in photography—but whether audiences will know what kind of truth an image is asking them to believe.Photography isn’t dying.It’s renegotiating its contract with reality.00:00 The Last Trusted Image02:14 Photographs as Evidence05:36 How Visual Investigations Verify Reality08:41 How AI Learns to Fake the World12:02 Why Detection Is Falling Behind15:34 C2PA and the Chain of Custody for Images20:18 Provenance vs Privacy24:41 Transparency as the New Truth28:09 The Split Future of Photography33:22 Law, Copyright, and Synthetic Media38:10 The New Role of the Photographer41:56 Rebuilding Trust After the CollapseChaptersKey Reference ListThe New York Times — Visual Investigations Teamhttps://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/visual-investigationsDr. Hany Farid (UC Berkeley) — Digital image forensics, deepfakes, and AI detectionhttps://farid.berkeley.edu/MIT Media Lab Study — False News Spreads Faster Than the Truthhttps://news.mit.edu/2018/study-twitter-false-news-travels-faster-true-stories-0308Content Provenance and Authenticity Initiative (C2PA) — Technical frameworkhttps://c2pa.org/Adobe Content Authenticity Initiative — Industry adoption and standardshttps://contentauthenticity.org/World Press Photo — Introduction of “Synthetic Narratives”https://www.worldpressphoto.org/Fred Ritchin — Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizenhttps://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262026843/bending-the-frame/Ian Goodfellow — Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)https://papers.nips.cc/paper/5423-generative-adversarial-netsStability AI — Stable Diffusion research papers and documentationhttps://stability.ai/researchU.S. Copyright Office (2023) — Policy on AI-generated works and authorshiphttps://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/European Union AI Act — Regulatory framework and disclosure requirementshttps://artificialintelligenceact.eu/REAL Political Ads Act (U.S.) — Disclosure requirements for AI-generated political mediahttps://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1596
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    25 mins
  • Exposed - AI, Photography, and the Collapse of Trust (Part 1)

    Exposed - AI, Photography, and the Collapse of Trust (Part 1)
    Jan 27 2026
    “A single AI image of the Pope in a designer puffer jacket didn’t just go viral — it revealed something worse…”A single AI image of the Pope in a designer puffer jacket didn’t just go viral — it exposed how quickly authenticity can collapse when the internet is flooded with convincing fakes. In the age of AI photography, “seeing” isn’t believing anymore. It’s step one of verification.In Part 1 of this two-part series, Bad Photographers traces the long history of image manipulation — from spirit photography and staged “fairies,” to propaganda erasures and Photoshop — and explains why today’s synthetic media is fundamentally different. This isn’t only editing reality. It’s manufacturing photo, video, and audio from scratch, at scale — powering deepfakes, identity hijacking, and misinformation / disinformation that can outrun corrections.We break down what this means for photojournalism, public trust, and the role of images as credibility / evidence — because when audiences assume everything could be fake, the real danger isn’t that we can’t spot the lie. It’s that we stop trusting the truth.Part 2 explores what comes next: provenance, standards, and the tools (and ethics) required to rebuild trust after the collapse.Chapters00:00 The Evolution of Photography and Trust04:24 Historical Deceptions in Photography06:06 The Impact of AI on Visual Truth07:57 The Consequences of Misinformation10:13 The Collapse of Trust in Imagery11:13 The Future of Visual Media15:59 The Ethical Dilemmas of AI18:14 The Role of Photography in Society20:02 The Fight for Authenticity21:54 The Personal Impact of Manipulated Images23:18 The Call to Action for ChangeKey Reference LinksDurham, M. G. “‘Napalm Girl’ at 50: The story of the Vietnam War’s defining photo.” 2023. URL:⁠ https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/download/20175/4204 IJOC⁠“The Terror of War (Napalm Girl) Photographed by Nick Ut.” Yale University Press. 2021. URL:⁠ https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2021/09/20/napalm-girl/ Yale University Press⁠Maizland, L. “Photographers’ Moral Responsibility to Document Injustice in … (Kevin Carter case).” 2022. URL:⁠ https://edspace.american.edu/atrium/wp-content/uploads/sites/1901/2022/05/Maizland-Lindsay.pdf EdSpace⁠“The Vulture and the Little Girl” (Kevin Carter photograph). Wikipedia entry. URL:⁠ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vulture_and_the_Little_Girl Wikipedia⁠Al-Jazeera Institute. “Ethical Dilemmas of Photo Editing in Media.” March 26, 2024. URL:⁠ https://institute.aljazeera.net/en/ajr/article/2614 Al Jazeera Institute⁠Reuters. “Reuters toughens rules after altered photo affair.” August 9 2007. URL:⁠ https://www.reuters.com/article/economy/reuters-toughens-rules-after-altered-photo-affair-idUSL18678707/ Reuters⁠Adobe Blog. “Insights from Reuters on Capturing Images People Can Trust.” June 23 2017. URL: https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2017/06/23/insights-from-reuters-on-capturing-images-people-can-trust.html⁠ Adobe Blog⁠Quill Magazine. “Photo Unrealism: Doctoring pics is becoming easier — and harder to detect.” June 20 2024. URL:⁠ https://www.quillmag.com/2024/06/20/photo-unrealism-doctoring-pics-is-becoming-easier-and-harder-to-detect/ Quill⁠Faculty at Georgia Tech. “Photo Tampering Throughout History.” URL:⁠ https://faculty.cc.gatech.edu/~beki/cs4001/history.pdf Georgia Tech Faculty⁠Aesthetic Investigations. “The Atrocity of Representing Atrocity: Watching Kevin Carter’s Photograph.” 2015. URL:⁠ https://aestheticinvestigations.eu/article/download/12001/13563 Aesthetic Investigations⁠Arielle Lorre calls out AI-generated fake beauty ad:⁠ https://www.indy100.com/tiktok/ai-video-trending-arielle-lore-skincare-skaind-lawsuit⁠WIRED: “Companies Are Stealing Influencers’ Faces”:⁠ https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-instagram-influencers-stolen-faces/⁠
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    26 mins
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