AI looms as one of the biggest threats to photographers, but in the early days of AI image generation, I saw that some people were generating truly beautiful surreal images with the various AI tools available to us. I was inspired by some of that imagery I wanted to try my hand at using AI images as reference. Here, I play with uncanny valley, retro-futurism, and camp, all aspects of the imagery that end up being more impactful and more present in the final outcome than the look and feel of the original AI images. Of course, the AI imagery I referenced certainly weren't the only inspiration for these photos. I drew heavily from the styling and photography of Thierry Mugler and the spirit of mid-century space age. In the end, I think reverse engineering the AI images became less important than what was happening in the moment on set. Which isn't that surprising because human beings will always be more interesting than algorithmic code parroting back humanity.