Imperfection and Authenticity

2026 will be the Year of Authenticity

This photo stayed mostly hidden in my image files because of the distracting clump of grass in front of the baby cheetah’s face. I know, I’m an idiot.

I am convinced that 2026 will be the year authenticity finally takes center stage. We are approaching a tipping point where being real and imperfectly human resonates more deeply than polish and perfection ever could. Authenticity matters now more than ever because we have crossed a threshold: perfection has become a commodity. Artificial intelligence and advanced image-processing tools have made perfection ubiquitous, sterile, predictable, and in many cases, completely fake.

I love animals, and for years I genuinely enjoyed wildlife videos on social media. But over the past four or five months, something has changed. Most of what I see now is fabricated. AI-generated wildlife videos have become so technically convincing that only subtle clues give them away: implausible scenarios, exaggerated human reactions and dialogue, or lighting and camera angles that feel too perfect to be true.

And because they are fake, they leave me cold and emotionless. I feel no connection and no visceral response. Real videos, on the other hand, share one endearing quality that screams genuineness: imperfection. They are often grainy, shaky, unfocused, contrasty, and full of distractions. And yet they are more likely to move me because they are honest. That realization was my first real wake-up call.

Now this same phenomenon is bleeding into photography as well, which makes me pay closer attention since this happens to be my profession and my life. As a photographer, I have spent decades pursuing technical excellence, always pushing toward perfection. As a teacher, I have conducted countless critiques with students where I point out distracting visual elements in the frame, slightly crooked horizons, awkward lighting, a disproportional distribution of negative space, or bright areas that pull the eye away from the main subject. I will continue to do that, because learning requires discipline and growth.

But when I look at my own work now, I am less certain than I used to be. What if there are distracting blades of grass partially obscuring an animal’s face? Clone them out? Not anymore. Or at least, I’m not as sure as I used to be. Highlights in the background that pull attention from the subject? Maybe I leave them there. Nature is messy. Life is messy. That messiness is not necessarily a flaw; it is a truth. Slightly out of focus? I am willing to accept it if the image makes me or my audience feel something real.

I have not fully mapped out this path yet. That should be obvious. I’m really thinking out loud here. But I do know the direction in which I am heading: toward work that is more honest. More human. More imperfect. More like me. And perhaps, in a world saturated with artificial perfection, authenticity and imperfection might very well be the next big thing!