The Photojournalist I Never Became… Until AI

When I was in high school, I had one very clear dream. I wanted to be a photojournalist. Not casually, not as a hobby. I wanted it badly. I imagined myself standing behind a camera in places where history was unfolding in real time. War zones, protests, disasters, triumphs. The places where the world changes and someone has to document it. Photojournalism always fascinated me because it sits right at the intersection of truth and storytelling. One image can capture what thousands of words sometimes struggle to explain. But parents have a remarkable ability to gently, and sometimes firmly, steer their children toward different paths. Both Mum and Dad were convinced my future lay in medicine. To them it was a stable, meaningful profession, one that would make a difference in people’s lives. At the time I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of trading a camera for textbooks and hospital corridors, but life has a funny way of proving people right in unexpected ways. Twenty-two years later, I can honestly say I don’t regret that decision. Not at all. Medicine became an incredibly rewarding path, and along the way I even spent some time in the Air Force. That experience alone was something I never would have had if I’d followed my teenage dream straight out of school. Still, Mum used to say photojournalism was “too dangerous,” which confused me for years. After all, how dangerous could photography really be? Eventually Dad cleared that up for me in a very direct way. “Kiddo,” he said, “we know you too well. The first thing you’d do once you had some experience under your belt is jump on the first plane heading for a war zone.” He wasn’t wrong. That’s the thing about photojournalism. The most powerful images often come from the most dangerous places. If I had gone down that road, I probably would have chased those stories without hesitation. Even today, part of me still dreams about it. But dreams evolve, and sometimes they find unexpected new tools. These days, with the help of artificial intelligence, I can create many of the scenes and subjects I once imagined photographing. It’s not the same as standing there with a camera while the moment unfolds, but it does allow me to explore the same ideas that drew me to photojournalism in the first place. Human stories. Real moments. Powerful images. That’s why you won’t see a lot of abstract or heavily stylized art in what I create. Nothing against it, of course, but it’s simply not where my heart sits. What I love most is capturing life as it feels. Images that look like they could have been taken in the real world. Moments that tell a story. People in situations that make you pause for a second and wonder what’s happening just outside the frame. Sometimes those scenes lean a little toward science fiction. Old habits of imagination are hard to shake. But at its core, the goal is still the same dream I had all those years ago in high school. To tell a story with an image. Even if the camera has changed.