I’m a photographer. In my frames, there’s melancholy, cinematic light, a kind of silence you want to stay in. Every image feels like a still from a film that was never made.

When AI appeared, I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t call it a “factory of fakes”. I got curious, because from the very beginning, I felt it was a tool, not an enemy. The question isn’t “should we be scared?”, but it’s “what can we do with it, in our own way?”

So I took my own works. The very ones: cinematic, melancholic. And with the help of AI, I turned them into videos. But not just “moving pictures”: but in motion where a person still remains exactly themselves. Recognisable. Real. With the same look, the same quiet intensity. AI didn’t invent a new person. It extended the one who was already living inside my frame. That matters.

AI didn’t embellish my work. It just let a frozen moment stir and come alive. Technology doesn’t lie, it simply knows how to reconstruct time. And if a photographer works with truth from the very beginning (even if it’s a cinematic truth, not documentary), then AI becomes not a replacement, but a natural extension.

So, should photographers use AI? Yes. If you don’t stop being yourself.

I don’t see a difference between learning new colour-grading software and learning how to animate my photos through AI. There are simply more tools now. Your vision — that’s what remains essential. AI doesn’t shoot, doesn’t compose, doesn’t chase the light. You do that. It just helps your images to breathe. Not instead of you, but because of you.

I’m still a photographer. My photos are still about melancholy and cinema. It’s just that now, some of them also know how to move quietly, while staying honest.

Is it worth trying? If you’re curious, then absolutely yes. If only for that moment when a character you once “froze” suddenly blinks and looks a little further than he could before…

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Below are the images I used to create the video using AI.

The video created from these photographs using AI

Living photo: when AI doesn’t imagine, but remembers. Portrait Photographer Marie Loiko
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