Merry Christmas everybody! This is a short message to pass along Season’s Greetings to all my readers, and to confirm that Santa is a photographer.
I recruited the help of my algorithmic pal, DALL-E 2, to conjure up a suitable image with which to illustrate this post. It reflects my love of Christmas, passion for photography, and fascination with generative artificial intelligence.
As anyone who has experimented with DALL-E 2 knows, it is hit and miss whether the text prompt will generate a glorious or gruesome image. In this case, my prompt: ‘Santa Claus taking a photo’ yielded a winner! I also generated three other passable renditions. I was almost certain that Santa is a photographer. Now we can see him in action. The image DALL-E 2 hallucinated is either Santa either taking a selfie (in a mirror) or pointing his camera directly at us, his adoring fans.
The ‘Currier and Ives-style’ graphics selected by the deep-learning algorithm delivers a memorable image. I shall be using this in all future Christmas greetings, be they Christmas cards, Instagram posts, or blog messages.
The runner up image we generated also usable. It did not possess the impact of Santa aiming his lens directly at us. But, it does look as if Santa is wearing glasses, and so could be passed off as yours truly in Santa costume, trying to convince skeptics that Santa is a photographer.
Happy Holidays 2022!