Andrew Collett Photography

04/04/2026

Photoshoot with Mabel yesterday. She had fun teaching me how to combine composition and atmosphere to visually elevate my photos. She continues to surprise me;)

03/10/2026

03/10/2026

Reimagining my photo City Humans with the help of Midjourney. I am curious about exploring the intersection between photography, imagination, an AI.

As a city newbie I am fascinated by the business of Toronto. The hustle and bustle, the diversity, the lights and movement. I was imagining the idea of ascending the city, human form in motion vs a city in a static state. This is where Midjourney came in.

I have been inspired by the work of and was looking for a way to visualize the concept of ascending. I think this is a fascinating example of how we as creators can merge traditional art forms with emerging technology. Not making a statement not looking for approval, just playing and creating.

03/08/2026

Feeling patriotic:)

03/08/2026

City Humans

01/04/2026

I’ve lived through more than one creative revolution.

I started as a film photographer, moved into digital, and now I’m witnessing the rise of AI-assisted image making. At the same time, I’ve found a new voice for my songwriting through AI—bringing my lyrics and emotional direction to life in a way that simply wasn’t accessible to me before.

It’s left me with questions I don’t hear asked often enough:
Does the tool used to create art matter more than the truth it carries?
And should meaningful work be dismissed because of how it was made?

I’ve written a longer piece exploring these questions—without taking sides—as an observer living inside the change.

I’m also sharing one of my own songs, “The Raven,” a journey through addiction and recovery, and I’d genuinely welcome thoughtful, civil discussion.

🔗 Full essay below.

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The Tool and the Truth
Observations on AI, Art, and the Stories We Allow to Be Heard

I’ve lived through more than one creative revolution.

I began as a photographer in the era of film—loading rolls in darkness, measuring light with care, waiting days to see whether an image existed at all. Each frame carried cost, consequence, and uncertainty. When photography moved into the digital age, I moved with it. The tools changed, the pace accelerated, and the process became more accessible. Control replaced chance. Speed replaced suspense.

And now, again, the ground is shifting.

AI-assisted image making is no longer theoretical—it’s here. At the same time, something unexpected has unfolded in another part of my creative life. As a writer—someone who has written lyrics for years but never had the means, access, or network to collaborate with musicians—I’ve found a new voice through AI-assisted music tools.

My words.
My emotional arc.
My musical direction.
Finally audible.

I don’t arrive at this moment as an advocate or an opponent. I arrive as an observer—aware that every major technological shift brings both possibility and fear, and that our first reactions often reveal more about ourselves than about the tool itself.

So rather than take a side, I want to sit with questions.

Should a song be denied because of the tool used to create it?

If the lyrics are written by a human hand, shaped by lived experience, and guided by intentional emotional direction—does the tool that renders the sound invalidate the work?

Historically, we’ve separated authorship from ex*****on. A composer does not need to perform every instrument. A photographer does not need to manufacture film or build a camera. A director does not need to act every role.

Yet AI unsettles us because it appears to do too much.

But does it—or are we responding to the visibility of the process rather than the intention behind it?

If authorship is rooted in meaning, authorship, and emotional coherence, where does the tool actually sit in that hierarchy?

Is access a factor in creative legitimacy?

For most of my life, there was no realistic path for me to hear my songs performed. Even if musicians were available, the financial reality made collaboration impractical. That is true for countless writers whose creative expression never moves beyond the page—not because the work lacks depth, but because access has always been unequal.

So when a tool lowers the barrier between idea and expression, does that make the work less valid—or does it expose a long-standing gatekeeping mechanism we’ve rarely questioned?

If AI allows voices that would otherwise remain silent to be heard, what exactly are we protecting by resisting it?

How is this different from the shift from film to digital?

When photography moved from film to digital, many of the same arguments surfaced:

It’s too easy now

Anyone can do it

The craft is being lost

The value is diluted

And yet, what actually happened?

The barrier to entry lowered.
The ceiling of excellence remained.
Vision still mattered.
Taste still mattered.
Emotional resonance still separated meaningful work from noise.

The tool changed. The responsibility of the artist did not.

So the question becomes: is AI fundamentally different—or is it another evolution we haven’t yet learned how to contextualize?

Does the tool alter the audience’s experience?

When someone stands in front of a photograph—or listens to a song—do they experience the process, or the result?

Most viewers don’t ask what camera was used. Most listeners don’t ask how a song was recorded. They respond to what the work does to them.

If a piece moves someone, unsettles them, comforts them, or helps them feel less alone—does knowledge of the tool enhance that experience, diminish it, or simply complicate it?

And should it?

Can emotional truth stand on its own?

At the core of all art is a question older than any technology:
Does this feel true?

A story either resonates or it doesn’t.
An image either holds attention or it doesn’t.
A song either connects—or it doesn’t.

If the emotional message lands—if the work carries coherence, vulnerability, and intention—can it not stand on its own, regardless of how it was assembled?

Or are we confusing discomfort with dishonesty?

Why does this change feel harder for photographers?

Photographers, perhaps more than many creatives, tie identity to process. We learned through labor. We earned results through repetition and restraint. When something becomes easier, it can feel like a threat—not just to craft, but to meaning and self-worth.

Yet when we moved from darkrooms to digital workstations, we didn’t abandon standards. We adapted them. The discipline moved from chemistry to calibration, from exposure sheets to histograms, from trays to timelines.

So is the resistance really about AI?

Or is it about fear—fear of relevance, fear of losing a hard-earned identity, fear that the ground beneath us is shifting faster than we can recalibrate?

Are we confusing process ownership with authorship?

If an artist defines the concept, emotional intent, narrative arc, and meaning—but does not manually execute every step—where does authorship actually reside?

Have we quietly tied legitimacy to labor rather than vision?

Would we judge the work differently if we didn’t know how it was made?

If a song moved us before we knew the tool, does that revelation change the truth of the experience—or only our interpretation of it?

Is the work diminished retroactively—or does the discomfort belong elsewhere?

Is our resistance really about AI—or about the loss of scarcity?

When fewer barriers exist, does value disappear… or does discernment simply become more important?

When creation becomes more accessible, perhaps the real currency shifts from difficulty to intention.

And what about responsibility?

If tools evolve endlessly, perhaps the enduring responsibility of the artist is not how something is made—but why it is made, and what it contributes to the human conversation.

Which brings me to The Raven.

The Raven: A Lived Example

The Raven is not an experiment in technology.
It is one song in a collection of songs I have written on addiction and recovery.

And It is a story I am uniquely positioned to tell.
I chose songwriting because, for me, music reaches places that words on a page often cannot. It bypasses defenses. It carries emotion directly. It stays with people.

I believe—deeply—that storytelling through music can help those who are struggling feel less alone, more understood, or more hopeful.

So I have to ask:

Should the potential benefit of this body of work be denied—
not because of its message,
not because of its intention,
but because of the tool used to bring it into sound?

If a song helps someone take a step toward healing, does the process matter more than the outcome?

Or does refusing the work say more about our attachment to tradition than our commitment to impact?

An open question, not a conclusion

I don’t believe these questions have simple answers. I’m not convinced they should.

What I do believe is that every technological shift forces us to re-examine what we value:

Is it the tool?

The difficulty?

The lineage?

Or the human impulse to express, connect, and be understood?

Perhaps AI is not asking us to choose sides—but to become more conscious observers of our own attachments.

And maybe the most important question isn’t whether AI belongs in art—but whether we are willing to stay curious, honest, and humane as creativity continues to evolve.

A Note on Comments

I’m sharing The Raven (see pinned comment below) alongside this essay as an invitation—not a declaration.

For those who enjoy ’90s grunge-influenced rock, I invite you to listen. I welcome thoughtful critique on the use of AI in art—positive or critical. I only ask that responses remain civil, informed, and rooted in curiosity rather than dismissal.

https://suno.com/s/b7joa3jCYyoOHMlk

This isn’t about winning an argument.
It’s about understanding what kind of creative future we want to participate in.

Listen and make your own on Suno.

01/03/2026

Why Do I Create?

I’ve asked myself this question many times.
Not when things are going well — but when life feels heavy, noisy, or disconnected.

For me, creating has never really been about the outcome.
It’s been about what happens to me while I’m doing it.

When I create, something in my body softens. My breathing slows. My shoulders drop. The background noise in my head quiets. I didn’t know the science behind it at first — I just knew it worked.

Later, I learned that when we create, we shift into a calmer nervous system state. Stress hormones ease. The mind stops scanning for problems. The body feels safer. That sense of relief isn’t imagined — it’s physiological.

Creativity also does something powerful to the mind.

When I’m fully immersed in making something — a photograph, a piece of writing, an idea — I’m not replaying the past or worrying about the future. I’m here. Time behaves differently. Self-criticism loosens its grip. That constant inner commentary fades into the background.

That’s what people often call flow.
To me, it feels more like coming home.

I’m sharing an image here of my dog, Mabel — a photograph that has no commercial value and was never meant to. It was simply fun to make. Getting her to cooperate, to pause just long enough, to meet me in that moment took patience, presence, and play. There was no brief, no expectation, no outcome I needed it to serve.

And yet, the process was surprisingly powerful.

It reminded me that creativity doesn’t always need a destination to be meaningful. Sometimes the value is simply in showing up, engaging fully, and allowing something unique to emerge — not because it needs to be useful, but because it feels alive.

Creating has also been a way to move emotion — especially the kind that doesn’t fit neatly into words. Some things don’t need to be explained or solved. They just need a way out of the body.

And maybe most importantly, creativity reconnects me with who I am beneath the roles, the pressure, the expectations. Not who I’m trying to be — but who I already am when I’m present.

I don’t create to escape life.
I create to feel it more fully.

I invite you to reflect on why you create, what it brings into your life, and how you might allow a little more of it into your everyday moments.

12/27/2025

My Child in the Trees — On Art, AI, and Going Deeper

For years, my creative expression has lived primarily through photography — walking in forests, responding to light, shape, and stillness, and using images as a way to reflect what I was feeling rather than explain it.

Alongside the images, I’ve always written. Sometimes reflections, sometimes poems, sometimes lyrics. Words gave voice to what the images held. But until recently, those words — like the photographs — existed quietly on a screen or in print.

My Child in the Trees began this way.
As an image.
As a feeling.
As words.

The song grew out of my reflections on childhood innocence, how we lose it as we grow up, and how — through recovery, health, and inner work — we can begin to rediscover it again. The forests I photograph have long been symbols of that return for me: places of refuge, memory, and truth.

What changed was discovering AI-assisted music creation.

For the first time, my words didn’t just sit beside the images — they moved. They breathed. They carried emotion in a way that neither the photograph nor the text could fully do on its own. The song became a third language — sound — completing something that had been trying to emerge for a long time.

There is a lot of debate right now about AI in art and photography. Much of it is framed around resistance — fear of loss, fear of replacement, fear of authenticity being diluted.

For me, the question feels different.

Rather than asking “Should we resist AI?”
I find myself asking:
“How can we use it as a creative partner to go deeper into our own experience as artists?”

There is no version of this song that exists without AI. And yet, there is nothing about it that feels impersonal to me. Quite the opposite. It is deeply intimate. It carries my story, my reflections, and my relationship with the landscapes I photograph — translated into a medium I could not have accessed alone.

To deny its existence simply because AI played a role would feel like denying the song itself — and the connection it may offer to others.

Art has always evolved alongside tools. Cameras once threatened painting. Digital threatened film. And yet, what endures is not the tool — but the truth the artist brings to it.

For me, My Child in the Trees is not about technology.
It’s about expression.
It’s about honesty.
It’s about finding new ways to say what matters.

If this song resonates, I hope it does so not because of how it was made — but because something in it feels familiar, remembered, or quietly true.