09.23. | When Reality Looks Too Good...

Today we tested how people can join our Vienna sessions online. The good news: from now on, anyone can take part remotely—all you need to do is register here.

By the end of September, BMI Fotoklub is slowly turning into a very large secret photography cult, with Henri Cartier-Bresson as high priest and one motto: “The search for the unrepeatable, PERFECT MOMENT.”

Tonight's mission took place in central Vienna: use discreet street-photography techniques to catch the intangible.

And the main objective? One photograph. Yes, you read that correctly: one perfect photograph. The kind that deserves to hang in the living room, the office, the bathroom and the kitchen.

The important thing was knowing when we had reached the exit point. This is one of a photographer's greatest spiritual battles: the moment when you lean back, satisfied, instead of blindly machine-gunning another SD card full of images. Month by month we'll train ourselves to recognise that feeling sooner—the point where the picture is simply done.

There is no time for indecision. We photograph as though we were carrying a film camera loaded with 36 frames and this were our last roll. Digital photography is the curse of abundance; we're voluntarily returning to photographic celibacy.

Trapped by Perspe(c)tive: No Looking Back!

Working in a Bresson-like way is not easy. In fact, today's fashion seems to be: everything must be sharp. Even the last pigeon in the background, because who knows—perhaps that pigeon is the real protagonist.

And forget about cropping or zooming afterwards. The frame has to be right at the instant you press the shutter. Full stop. Think of a surgeon making an incision: after the operation there is no “actually, I should have cut a little more over there” retouching.

So how do you make a perfect image under those conditions? Start with perspective. Lines, parallels, perpendiculars. First see the frame. If the frame works, whatever happens inside it has a chance to work too.

Find the lines. Stay present. Press the shutter. Done.

And DON'T LOOK BACK.

If you immediately review the image, the mind starts whispering: “Maybe I could make a better one.” That is the contagious swamp of doubt, and it slowly eats the artistic self alive.

The Great Nightmare: I'm TOO PERFECT (and AI Is to Blame)

Why insist on raw reality when modern technology could make life so much easier? Today you can simply tell AI: “Move the sun. Give the corner greengrocer Brad Pitt's haircut. Make the pigeon's eyes neon pink.”

There is, however, a huge complication: artificial intelligence.

Soon the internet may be flooded with AI-generated imagery because it's easier than ever to produce something beautiful and perfect—even when that kind of perfection DOESN'T EXIST in reality. The sun always arrives at the ideal angle. Every pore disappears from every face. The pizza never burns. Welcome to the digital Photoshop dictatorship.

The strangest part? I tested it. I posted three or four AI images, then some of my own original photographs, made the old-fashioned way with time and effort. And people said about my real photographs: “Wow, this has to be AI—it's TOO GOOD.”

Think about the drama. A photographer spends years pursuing excellence, finally makes a photograph that feels almost perfect, and the audience assumes an algorithm did it.

AI learned from highly accomplished photographs like these. Most people simply weren't used to seeing so many of them before. Now the PERFECT IMAGE is becoming synonymous with AI.

We've reached a point where an image that looks too professional can be suspected of being synthetic. The photographer's goal is to create a remarkable image—but when success itself makes the audience doubt its authenticity, perfection becomes the new flaw.

Give Me Reality! Or at Least a Pimple!

There is hope.

As AI increasingly smooths away every trace of reality, people may begin to crave REALITY again. Yes, leave the pimple. Leave the mistake, the wrinkle, the dirt. Because immaculate, sterile things will be everywhere.

The desire for perfection isn't new. Look at old portraits of your grandparents—you may struggle to find a wrinkle there either. But that was the result of contemporary retouching methods and technical limitations. AI can go much further: it can potentially remove almost every trace of lived reality.

But we—the little Bressons—can help teach the world to look for genuine feeling again, to bring the essence of a moment to the surface.

People will want to see reality, and to be seen realistically.

If you have an AI create an idealised version of you, it can never reproduce the actual feeling of being you. At best, it creates a flawless but soulless double.

We are hunters of the perfect imperfection.

Get ready, AI. Soon the most-liked photograph may be the one where someone cut the bread badly—because at least it is REAL.

Part of the BANHALMI ecosystem

For the professional context and practical side of portrait photography, visit the BANHALMI professional website. Related art series, books and exhibitions are preserved in the BANHALMI ART archive.