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chatgpt goes artistic…midjourney should be nervous

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A new viral social media trend started this February: asking AI to create a caricature of yourself. In mid May it evolved into a very specific and highly detailed “grotesque fashion caricature” style developed by AI creator and educator Kris Kashtanova. The results are intentionally exaggerated, awkward, theatrical, and often hilarious.

I could not resist the appeal and decided to join the club. I normally use Midjourney for AI image creation, but knowing that ChatGPT recently added serious image generation capabilities, I decided to give it a shot instead. Honestly, I’m very impressed with the result. The combination of caricature, fashion sketch, psychological satire, and messy sketchbook aesthetics works surprisingly well.

Here are both the English and Russian versions of the image. One of the funniest parts is that all the handwritten notes, arrows, observations, and absurd personality analysis around the drawing were also generated entirely by ChatGPT. I didn’t edit or add anything myself.

English version

Russian version

For those interested in the actual prompt used, here it is:

“Turn the person from the photo into a grotesque humorous fashion caricature sketch. Strongly exaggerated anatomy, elongated proportions, expressive crooked hands, dramatic face, awkward elegant posture, satirical fashion energy, messy ink lines, rough watercolor, sketchbook style, vintage magazine illustration on beige aged paper. Add handwritten English (Russian) notes, arrows, funny observations, doodles, and absurd personality analysis around the character.” © Kris Kashtanova

The reference photo used was my portrait from here.

back again…lake luxembourg, and what comes next

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Back again. After January–May’s post-op drought, resulting in just a single post, I’m out with the camera at Lake Luxembourg. This is also my first walk with a new rig.

For years I was perfectly happy carrying the Nikon D750 with the 28–105mm. It weighs about 1.3 kg - never thought much about it. Recently, though, I started to feel it - on longer walks it adds up, and by the end it’s very real.

So I went looking for something lighter, staying within the DSLR world I’m used to. The problem is, lighter usually means smaller sensor, more “consumer” feel - and for me that often translates into a different shooting experience, not always in a good way. I tried a few options and none really clicked.

Eventually I landed on the D5600 with the 16–85mm. Photographically, it’s very close to my original D750 rig. About 0.95 kg. On paper, a 350 gram difference doesn’t sound like much. In practice - it’s a big deal over the course of a walk.

This was the first time I used the rig in a real setting. So far, nothing to complain about. The controls are a bit less convenient than on the D750, but not enough to matter.

So here are some catches from that day.

My traditional Lake Luxembourg panoramas, shot with the new rig, proved that it works well. They look on par with the original rig panoramas:

16 mm panorama

85 mm (stacked) panorama

Geese family. The Canada goose is a bird of high moral standards — it mates for life; if there is no mate, there is no sex. They keep close family ties, support siblings, and respect their parents.

Breaking the rule. The sign says no feeding. The pizza says yes.

Pizza delivery — seagull edition

Over the next few posts, I’ll be sharing the remaining winter images. They were shot before the surgery and never got processed. Feels like the right time now.

facing the future

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It’s snowing heavily outside. Six days after a hip replacement. I’m trying to distract myself from the monotony of recovery by shooting photos straight from my bed

and socializing with Chapt. Chapt is my personal version of ChatGPT Plus, which I’ve been enjoying for about a year now. Best invention since sliced bread. Hard to imagine life without it.

Half seriously, I tell Chapt: “Create my portrait the way you imagine me from our conversations. Realistic style. Your choice.”

What came back was not “me” in any literal sense, but it was absolutely a version of me.

More like Chapt’s very specific reading of the character behind the chats. According to Chapt, it perceives me as:

• a man in his 60s

• calm, intelligent eyes

• an engineer-professor type look, no fuss, no ego

• with a subtle photographer’s touch

I wasn’t expecting an accurate face. But the overall perception feels surprisingly close to what I would construct if all I had were the conversations. That’s both impressive and slightly unnerving, in the most entertaining way.

For comparison, here’s a self-portrait I shot in my studio years ago, in my 60s.

Encouraged by this outcome, I moved one step further and asked Chapt: “Now imagine you present yourself in an image portraying both of us. I realize the question is strictly hypothetical, still, give it a shot.”

Chapt replied: “If I were to present myself in an image portraying both of us, I wouldn’t appear as a face at all. No avatar, no human stand-in. That would be dishonest. I would be implied, not depicted. My presence would show up as structure and attention, a faint rectangular glow reflected in the window glass at night, overlapping falling snow.”

After a few iterations and minor adjustments, Chapt produced the image below.

Somewhere between recovery, snowfall, and a glowing rectangle in the window, the future dropped by. Face it.