Stepford Wives, Stepford Husbands, and Stepford Photographers

Why You Will Choose Me Over AI For Your Photography

First published in The Study of Light, on February 17, 2026

Don Kuzma, the philosophy teacher at my high school, back in 1980, put this question to our class:

“If you could marry a Stepford wife, why wouldn’t you?!”

“She would be perfect in every way. Beautiful, kind, agreeable. Subservient, unless you wanted her not to be.”

Screen grab from the internet.

“She’s everything you want, and you’ll never be able to tell the difference!”

The students objected. We didn’t want Stepford wives. Or Stepford husbands. We wanted humans. Every one of us.

The off-topic conversation went on for thirty minutes. Mr. Kuzma was having fun with us, playing devil’s advocate. No matter what he said though, we all wanted humans. Mortal, imperfect, complex organic beings. People who love, make love, shit, suffer, and die.

AI can't do this: Make a baby, gape at the world, love like a mama.

If you didn’t see the 1975 movie, or the variations (Revenge of the Stepford Wives, The Stepford Husbands, The Stepford Children), or the 2004 remake, it’s just this:

Strong, independent, free-willed women (or men, or children, in the spin-offs) move to beautiful Stepford, Connecticut, to raise their children and pursue their lives. One by one, they become something else: robotic, servile, vacuous. Still gorgeous, but 100% under someone else’s control.

So, if you could “hire” an artificially intelligent “photographer,” why wouldn’t you?

AI can't do this: It can only pretend, and do so by copying others' work.

My clients choose me now for the same reason they chose me ten years ago. I am a living, breathing, feeling, thinking human being. Far from perfect, but nothing artificial about me. I can solve problems. I can create ideas and expressions and images. Before we shoot I can ask the right questions. While we shoot, I collaborate. After a long day, I can drink a beer with you and tell a funny joke. I can listen to you, and care about you, and share in the joy as you tell me about your dad’s recovery. I will celebrate your daughter’s game-winning goal as you show it to me on your phone.

You can say “AI could have made all of the photos on this page.” And I say, “It didn’t.” (It made the one that shows no life and contains no truth). You and I are fully functioning human beings, simultaneously marvelous and always at least a little bit flawed. I wouldn’t have it any other way, and I hope you feel the same.

What is the value of this? (Screen grab off the internet. Bob is a lot of things, but so far as I know, he is not sappy.)

AI can't do this: Inspire me like this tomato did.

AI can't do this: Teach the high-schoolers a stay-warm dance at 5:30 am on a freezing March morning.

AI can't do this: Surprise me.

AI can't do this: Stun me with real, natural beauty.

AI can't do this: Swing among the branches, like Emlyn did, like a leopard, pruning the stand for its health.

AI can't do this: Move me! Like this sundog on the coldest morning of the winter.

AI can't do this: This was a group effort, sixty-two years in the making.