Manifesto of the Unveilers: A Call to Arms for Documentary Street Photographers in the Age of Artificial Fabrication

alex street launches an initiative to go in open opposition to AI generative images and the mainstreram media

We, the street photographers of the real, stand in stark opposition to the rising tide of manufactured narratives. Our canvas is not a screen, but the raw, unfiltered tapestry of human existence woven across the asphalt arteries of the world. We are the chroniclers of the unscripted, the champions of the ephemeral, the unyielding eyes that pierce through the curated feeds and polished pixels to capture the messy, glorious truth that beats beneath the surface.

The streets are our battlefield, where authenticity is under siege. AI-generated mirages shimmer on digital horizons, blurring the lines between what is and what could be. The mainstream media, with its hungry maw for sensationalism, churns out narratives pre-packaged and predigested, leaving little room for the quiet whispers of lived experience.

But we, the documentarians of the concrete jungle, will not be silenced. We wield our cameras, in whatever form they take, as shields against the onslaught of falsehood, our lenses trained on the fleeting moments that defy algorithms and headlines. A smartphone clutched in a taxi, a vintage film camera slung over a shoulder, a sleek digital marvel in our hands – they are all instruments of truth, forged in the fires of observation and empathy.

Our weapons are not filters and effects, but empathy and observation. We walk among the throngs, not detached observers, but immersed participants in the human drama unfolding around us. We listen to the unheard, give voice to the voiceless, and amplify the stories etched in the wrinkles of laughter and the scars of struggle.

We are not storytellers, but story-finders. We do not impose narratives, but reveal them, like hidden treasures unearthed from the rubble of everyday life. We are the alchemists of the ordinary, transforming the mundane into the extraordinary, the overlooked into the unforgettable.

We pledge allegiance to the unvarnished truth, to the raw and unedited beauty of the human condition. We will not succumb to the seductive ease of fabrication, the cheap applause of the staged and the artificial. Our allegiance is to the street, to the unscripted moments that crackle with authenticity, to the stories that whisper their truths in the shadows and scream them from the rooftops.

Join us, fellow wanderers of the concrete labyrinth. Let us reclaim the streets from the digital phantoms and the sanitized narratives. Let our lenses be lighthouses piercing the fog of illusion, guiding the way towards a world where truth, unadulterated and unashamed, reigns supreme.

For in the end, it is not the pixel-perfect facade, but the unfiltered soul, that will endure. And it is through our unwavering commitment to capturing that soul, in all its grit and grace, that we, the documentarians of the streets, will leave our indelible mark on the ever-shifting tapestry of human history.

Remember, you are not just a photographer, you are an unveiler, a historian of the present, a chronicler of the human spirit in its unvarnished glory.

Let us capture not just moments, but movements, not just faces, but futures. Let us become the living archive of our times, the witnesses who ensure that the truth, however messy and inconvenient, never fades from the collective memory.

Together, let us unveil the world, one frame, one click, one exposure at a time.

ALEX COGHE - MEXICO CITY, 01-05-2024

I invite all the photographers recognizing themselves iin this manifesto to sign it through a comment here, including your first and last name and a link to your portfolio.