I agree with your insights, and yes AI loves the golden hour! But think AI does have it's place as a tool and I also feel that most naturist images are themselves very predictable. To me body acceptance is about far more than fun at the club or beach. It's about accepting our body normal daily life, I find those types of images rare. (Most home based images seem to be just a man posing) As are images of things like just a group of people simply having a conversation while nude. Rather than smiling and posing. Of course right now I don't have access to environments to set up such shots with real people. A lot of what you are talking about here though isn't because that's all AI can do, it's because that's all most people push it too do. But my biggest issue with AI is it's censorship of human anatomy. Not just human genitals, or female breasts, or full backsides but just even the implication of nudity get's shut down for safety violation! Our human body, not just what someone is doing with it seems unsafe in AI land. (if you know of a tool that doesn't have these issues AND doesn't automatically sexualize full nudity if it does create it, please let me know!) Although some images have surprised me, most often to get anything close to what I want is frustrating to say the least!
Yes this is definitely something I’ve been annoyed by as well, most especially by an AI slop video by a prominent naturist org, totally lacking diversity besides not obeying physics.
Okay, this has bothered me to0, just check the feeds on your substack account, well, I get AI porn with sometimes some stories. Why even post this crap if it is not at least as a marketing aide for a story?
Truth be told, I have done book covers that are AI, my current novel series (I have done two books) one is a model and one is not, it is AI (the one with Jupiter in background), and I have done cover art on Nudetopian Nightmares that is AI and Burnett County Revisted. I have also done my own cad drawing etc, but AI is easier and quicker.....I have hired a cover artist to do 4 of my covers, but that was not cheap....I got a cool painting, I guess.....AI almost free!!!
On brochures......models are expensive, photo shoots are uncomfortable at a nudist club and u need waivers, and a photographer and sometimes a board of directors meeting, and then everyone has to look at every photos because maybe too much nipple or to much penis or God forbid, she looks under 18 (even if she is not)....I just went to an AANR Midwest convention where I can almost guarantee no photos were taken by anybody.....so 1) no marketing for next year, 2) nothing to archive for history and so then 3) if there is no record of it, did it even ever exist in 20 years say?
Everyone is afraid, and rightly so, most nudist sare afraid of being naked or seen naked, look on Ebay, someone is selling "Nudes a Poppin" Ponderosa (IN) 1979 photos for $30 a piece taken by some random guy in the audience whose photos ended up at some photo reseller.....One is a good history piece of a woman doing nude sword swallowing as her talent I guess, but I am not paying $30 for a 4x4 fading in color.....
But at our club very few photos between 2000 and now exist, I did some shoots for website but those are now dated and again, I should have paid models $500 to come and be shot because no one wanted to be in them that were members
Many of our members still have never told their adult children who may have children that they are members......and in Photo Field Trip in 1964 #6, many of our members got outed and some fired and one young girl eventually killed herself over the taunting in High school. Having photos taken are risky...so why would they agree to photos
AI has at least allowed nude people to be pictured at nude resorts/ clubs.
I would love to put together a marketing shoot for many of these clubs, even something like a taking retro photos using old scenes, old cars, old campers, with roles reversed from standard 1960s nudist photos (man delivering drinks wearing apron etc) and use it as marketing even put them in the Nude Nite art exhibit, make it in a calendar, use then for club ads and websites, but how many clubs could you even be able to do that at and who would ever want to be in them, and okay, we hire models...who would even believe you?....I could probably do it at a few places in Florida but you know anything has a risk, and ???? Would the president of Carolina Foothills even answer my email? I cannot get a woman who has 1981 photos of Tree House Fun Ranch in California with photos archived at Claremont College to agree to use her photos for anything at all, not even with payment, not that I needed them that badly. Michael Cooney has retired, what photographer has replaced him? I take bird and butterfly photos professionally, I can work on my skills, I guess.....
So here I am saying no one is ever going to want to be in a picture so why not AI? And I can also say, AI does is a horrible thing to use in promoting nudism/naturism, so who would want to use an AI photo on a brochure? ...someone tell me something positive. I prefer watercolor AI images not realistic setting btw
Thanks, Evan. The middle third of my business career was spent as the marketing services manager for an insurance company. I'm old enough to remember 'clip art' (from the days of rubber cement). It always had the same "not quite right / doesn't represent this company / everyone can see it's pre-fab art" feel that AI-generated art does today. When younger generations (and me, a pre-Boomer Silent Gen) are all talking about 'AI slop', it is high time for the alarm bell.
The AI assault will only get bigger. What people increasingly seek is authenticity. That means 'made by a human'. Sadly, clothes-free activities face the same problem that have given us photos of people-free swimming pools and empty recliners for decades. Nudists, at least older nudists, want to remain anonymous. No cameras allowed. Don't use my photo anywhere the public might see it.
You speak the truth we all know. It is the PEOPLE who make our clothes-free spaces both fun and rewarding. There are ways to photograph real people in animated conversation or sport without showing unclothed body parts that will trigger automated online systems. If everyone is shirtless in breast bone up photos it's obvious they are not wearing clothes. Backs are fine, and people can look over their shoulder to smile at the camera. Picture elements can obscure sensitive body parts. Bare legs from chairs can surround smiling faces looking up from the water of a swimming pool.
But we still have the problem of NO FACES. The unwillingness of many real participants to be personally identified with anything clothes-free limits our ability to tell our story. It also prevents us from normalizing a casual attitude about clothing. No faces reinforces the public idea that nudity is always connected with erotic activity.
Every clothes-free and clothing optional event needs to have an attractive space that does not overlook general attendance areas. Both outdoors and indoors. Let willing participants use their cameras and phone cameras in those spaces to capture photos and videos of their willing friends. Provide short but clear model releases for those people to use, along with short guidelines. This is the only way naturism will ever get the viral user-generated social media content that is the lifeblood of modern social organizations.
The lack of real human faces in flyers and news and social media that promote clothes-free living is suicidal. I think we need to free up the probably 1 of 4 people who would be happy to tell our story while smiling into a camera. Today we shut those people down to answer the fears of our mostly older participants. And wonder why we are becoming an older, dying relic of American history.
-- Tony Wilkinson, Alicia Lloyd's Acacia Club, ASA, 1964 :))
I agree with your insights, and yes AI loves the golden hour! But think AI does have it's place as a tool and I also feel that most naturist images are themselves very predictable. To me body acceptance is about far more than fun at the club or beach. It's about accepting our body normal daily life, I find those types of images rare. (Most home based images seem to be just a man posing) As are images of things like just a group of people simply having a conversation while nude. Rather than smiling and posing. Of course right now I don't have access to environments to set up such shots with real people. A lot of what you are talking about here though isn't because that's all AI can do, it's because that's all most people push it too do. But my biggest issue with AI is it's censorship of human anatomy. Not just human genitals, or female breasts, or full backsides but just even the implication of nudity get's shut down for safety violation! Our human body, not just what someone is doing with it seems unsafe in AI land. (if you know of a tool that doesn't have these issues AND doesn't automatically sexualize full nudity if it does create it, please let me know!) Although some images have surprised me, most often to get anything close to what I want is frustrating to say the least!
More icons = more impact! 😅😅
Yes this is definitely something I’ve been annoyed by as well, most especially by an AI slop video by a prominent naturist org, totally lacking diversity besides not obeying physics.
Okay, this has bothered me to0, just check the feeds on your substack account, well, I get AI porn with sometimes some stories. Why even post this crap if it is not at least as a marketing aide for a story?
Truth be told, I have done book covers that are AI, my current novel series (I have done two books) one is a model and one is not, it is AI (the one with Jupiter in background), and I have done cover art on Nudetopian Nightmares that is AI and Burnett County Revisted. I have also done my own cad drawing etc, but AI is easier and quicker.....I have hired a cover artist to do 4 of my covers, but that was not cheap....I got a cool painting, I guess.....AI almost free!!!
On brochures......models are expensive, photo shoots are uncomfortable at a nudist club and u need waivers, and a photographer and sometimes a board of directors meeting, and then everyone has to look at every photos because maybe too much nipple or to much penis or God forbid, she looks under 18 (even if she is not)....I just went to an AANR Midwest convention where I can almost guarantee no photos were taken by anybody.....so 1) no marketing for next year, 2) nothing to archive for history and so then 3) if there is no record of it, did it even ever exist in 20 years say?
Everyone is afraid, and rightly so, most nudist sare afraid of being naked or seen naked, look on Ebay, someone is selling "Nudes a Poppin" Ponderosa (IN) 1979 photos for $30 a piece taken by some random guy in the audience whose photos ended up at some photo reseller.....One is a good history piece of a woman doing nude sword swallowing as her talent I guess, but I am not paying $30 for a 4x4 fading in color.....
But at our club very few photos between 2000 and now exist, I did some shoots for website but those are now dated and again, I should have paid models $500 to come and be shot because no one wanted to be in them that were members
Many of our members still have never told their adult children who may have children that they are members......and in Photo Field Trip in 1964 #6, many of our members got outed and some fired and one young girl eventually killed herself over the taunting in High school. Having photos taken are risky...so why would they agree to photos
AI has at least allowed nude people to be pictured at nude resorts/ clubs.
I would love to put together a marketing shoot for many of these clubs, even something like a taking retro photos using old scenes, old cars, old campers, with roles reversed from standard 1960s nudist photos (man delivering drinks wearing apron etc) and use it as marketing even put them in the Nude Nite art exhibit, make it in a calendar, use then for club ads and websites, but how many clubs could you even be able to do that at and who would ever want to be in them, and okay, we hire models...who would even believe you?....I could probably do it at a few places in Florida but you know anything has a risk, and ???? Would the president of Carolina Foothills even answer my email? I cannot get a woman who has 1981 photos of Tree House Fun Ranch in California with photos archived at Claremont College to agree to use her photos for anything at all, not even with payment, not that I needed them that badly. Michael Cooney has retired, what photographer has replaced him? I take bird and butterfly photos professionally, I can work on my skills, I guess.....
So here I am saying no one is ever going to want to be in a picture so why not AI? And I can also say, AI does is a horrible thing to use in promoting nudism/naturism, so who would want to use an AI photo on a brochure? ...someone tell me something positive. I prefer watercolor AI images not realistic setting btw
and I want to add, the best quote on naturism, written and should have a bumper stick and plastered all over everything is this:
"Naturism has spent a century convincing the public we're real. Why are we suddenly advertising ourselves with fake people?"
I do not have time to do anything fancy, but I am going to give that quote to everyone I meet at the AANR Convention next week.
Going to put it on the back of my AANR Trustee business cards and with Evan's permission, add
"Just say no to AI marketing photos and yes to real naturist photos." to it Open for a better sentence
Feel free!
Not to mention most AI generation considers nudity as NSFW and it would hardly make anything without some sort of censorship.
easy to bypass by using "Naturist woman riding a horse with blonde hair etc." She is naked. Sometimes have to work at getting her to turn around etc
Thanks, Evan. The middle third of my business career was spent as the marketing services manager for an insurance company. I'm old enough to remember 'clip art' (from the days of rubber cement). It always had the same "not quite right / doesn't represent this company / everyone can see it's pre-fab art" feel that AI-generated art does today. When younger generations (and me, a pre-Boomer Silent Gen) are all talking about 'AI slop', it is high time for the alarm bell.
The AI assault will only get bigger. What people increasingly seek is authenticity. That means 'made by a human'. Sadly, clothes-free activities face the same problem that have given us photos of people-free swimming pools and empty recliners for decades. Nudists, at least older nudists, want to remain anonymous. No cameras allowed. Don't use my photo anywhere the public might see it.
You speak the truth we all know. It is the PEOPLE who make our clothes-free spaces both fun and rewarding. There are ways to photograph real people in animated conversation or sport without showing unclothed body parts that will trigger automated online systems. If everyone is shirtless in breast bone up photos it's obvious they are not wearing clothes. Backs are fine, and people can look over their shoulder to smile at the camera. Picture elements can obscure sensitive body parts. Bare legs from chairs can surround smiling faces looking up from the water of a swimming pool.
But we still have the problem of NO FACES. The unwillingness of many real participants to be personally identified with anything clothes-free limits our ability to tell our story. It also prevents us from normalizing a casual attitude about clothing. No faces reinforces the public idea that nudity is always connected with erotic activity.
Every clothes-free and clothing optional event needs to have an attractive space that does not overlook general attendance areas. Both outdoors and indoors. Let willing participants use their cameras and phone cameras in those spaces to capture photos and videos of their willing friends. Provide short but clear model releases for those people to use, along with short guidelines. This is the only way naturism will ever get the viral user-generated social media content that is the lifeblood of modern social organizations.
The lack of real human faces in flyers and news and social media that promote clothes-free living is suicidal. I think we need to free up the probably 1 of 4 people who would be happy to tell our story while smiling into a camera. Today we shut those people down to answer the fears of our mostly older participants. And wonder why we are becoming an older, dying relic of American history.
-- Tony Wilkinson, Alicia Lloyd's Acacia Club, ASA, 1964 :))
Love that you have conjured Alicia Lloyd. She is a favorite figure of mine from nudist history.