The enchanted forest

Nearly four years have passed since my last bigger project using a prompt-based method to generate images. Back then, in 2019, the outputs were more or less blobby structures. The new emerging AI systems are not only way better in content creation, but they are also able to emulate different types of mediums more faithfully.​​​​​​​

Currently (06. 2022), there seems to be a trend in the Midjourney community that leans towards a more illustrative, colorful, concept art-like style, where people often use the names of different artists as input to reproduce their style or attempt to emulate a 3D rendered look.

In this series, I undertook a small personal mission to avoid that trend, and I tried to explore something that I'm somewhat familiar with instead: different types of photographic mediums.

I aimed to create something mystical and otherworldly, yet still partially grounded in reality. To achieve this, I chose pinhole photography for its distinct, dream-like visual qualities. It also works well with AI artifacts, as they blend seamlessly into the overall aesthetic. Since the 6x6 medium format is common in pinhole photography, I opted for a 1:1 aspect ratio for the series.

As for the theme, enchanted forests are places from the folklore, where one can find both dread and refuge. It's a seemingly perfect environment for my initial goal since they exist somewhere between reality and imagination.

The Dwellers