A Threads/Instagram account is trying to pass AI-generated content as photos shot on film.
I believe that the manner and the tools used to create images matter. It’s why we celebrate film photography, marvel at the technique/timing, and shun ill-gotten content.
This belief is the reason I felt deceived and disappointed to learn that one of the accounts I follow hides behind plausible deniability to present their work as if it was shot on film.
The images the account is posting are edited to look like they were shot on film, which in itself is impressive. Unless you zoom in on every photo, examine their portfolio, and find some shots where the physics don’t quite make sense (like in the image attached here), you may, like me, assume that the poster is genuine.
Unfortunately, instead of showcasing their skills to folks who would appreciate them for what they are, @aymenfilmm chose to delete comments that ask them to do the same. And to the commenters who ask about their technique and equipment, they reply with seemingly AI-generated responses that mention film stocks and cameras that can not create the sorts of images they refer to.
This is major bad vibes for folks like me, who may now have even more trouble trusting what they see online.
Of course, this is not the worst thing that could happen, ever, but it sucks to see this deceptive attitude manifest within a niche built around physical medium meant to brings us closer to the real world.
I wrote about AI and film photography last year, which is when I examined some of the seeds that may have inspired accounts like this: analog.cafe/r/shot-on-film….
Still, creating images that aspire to have a certain look is not the same as passing them off as film by tagging them suggestively and telling lies about their origins.
First, an update to the earlier posts about @aymenfilmm, an account that shares AI-generated images and labels them as film. They have disabled comments and quotes on their account.
I don’t know who’s behind @aymenfilmm, but it seems understandable, given that many of the comments call them out for posting AI images and tagging them as film. Some of those comments are mean, though their previous actions suggest that they simply do not want to reveal how their images were created. Still, this community cut-off hasn’t stopped @aymenfilmm from sharing; in fact, they’re posting more often.
Meanwhile, another post came across my Threads stream where @scanmyphotos used an AI-generated image to promote their services (of scanning film). The camera in that image has no take-up spool chamber, the film canister has a very strange font and no branding, and the whole scene concept is ripped off from the One Hour Photo film by Mark Romanek, starring Robin Williams.
A further look at @scanmyphotos’s reveals more AI-generated promos.
Dmitri May 16, ‘25
Dmitri May 16, ‘25
Dmitri May 22, ‘25