For those who are not yet familiar with this photograph, here is the first piece of information: it was not altered by AI.
But I decided to focus on this photograph to address AI, because I believe it perfectly illustrates everything I have been hearing about how we need to deal with its impact on our work and on our lives.
This spectacular snapshot of two dragonflies perched on the tips of bayonets was taken in 1967 (therefore before digital cameras even existed) by photographer Evandro Teixeira, my father.
He was covering, for Jornal do Brasil, a commemorative event for Soldier’s Day at the Monument to the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in Rio de Janeiro, attended by the then president of the Republic, General Costa e Silva. The country was living under a full military dictatorship.
The photo was published with enormous prominence on the newspaper’s front page. The censor, who was a constant presence in the newsroom, did not grasp the irony of the image and approved it. The actual record of the event itself, in which the president appeared, ended up on an inside page.
Evandro was a master at capturing the context of every scene he encountered. He was never satisfied with recording the obvious. He observed everything around him and, masterfully, organized all the content that interested him within the viewfinder of his camera—manual and later digital; it didn’t matter.
In this way, his photographs conveyed messages and emotions. This was true in politics, in sports, in fashion, and in everyday scenes of people, from which he extracted extraordinary images.
He also seemed always ready to eternalize a fleeting moment, something only he saw, even when surrounded by a crowd. Evandro used to say that luck helped him, but we know he did a great deal to make it find him.
And what drove his genius?
Curiosity, adaptability, a critical eye, sharp contextual reading, and a deep connection with people.
Well then, these are exactly the characteristics that experts from the most diverse fields of AI have been proclaiming in lectures and urging us not only to preserve them, but to strengthen them, so that we can ride the giant wave of AI without being swallowed by it.
To reinforce what makes us human.
How many seconds did the dragonflies remain perched on the bayonets? Not even Evandro knew how to calculate that. But it doesn’t matter. Thanks to his eye, we can contemplate them there forever.
Carina Almeida, journalist, economist and the president-partner of Textual Comunicação.