If you have been reading my pieces then you would realise the extent of my interest in AI arts. This will be my third entry on MidJourney AI. However, unlike those times this entry will include my direct exchange with the creator. Farhan, who is from Kuala Lumpur, had his background study in Geomatics for his bachelor’s degree. Despite that, his interest in art drives him to come up with these life-like yet playful and humorous images.
The following is my exchange with him on Twitter direct messages.
Tell me a bit about your background
Farhan: I studied Geomatics for my degree, really interested in mapping and cartography. I am pretty much involved a lot with drone services and mapping for my career. I do go out for a photo walk sometimes with my film cameras and I had my first film photo exhibition in Perlis!
Where do you work and stay?
Farhan: Currently working at Cyberhawk as a senior geospatial technician. I’m in Doha, Qatar for another 5 – 10 years-ish? I don’t know yet.
Did you write all your prompts or did you use AI tools such as ChatGPT?
Farhan: All prompts are within my imagination so far and have been playing around with different features and key elements. I would also search for other users’ prompts and tweak them a bit so that I could get a different kind of result. It is indeed full of surprises.
How long did it take you to complete the images?
Farhan: Might take a couple of minutes to get a decent result (with a subscription). Unless you’re in ‘relaxed mode’ (then) it’ll take its own sweet time to generate.
How many hours for one image to be generated?
Farhan: Few minutes only!
How long have you done this AI image art?
Farhan: I got myself into this realm since the release of Dall-E, not so long ago- probably last year or the last two years I can’t remember. Then I joined the AI community, got to know MidJourney, subscribed to midjourney, and now I’m studying Stable Diffusion AI.
Farhan stated that he wanted his disclaimer to be included in this article. He wrote, “As a person who produces non-AI artworks, I would say that I don’t see AI as an original art that I physically produce, and I don’t take credit as a creator since MidJourney does all the image generation”.
When asked whether he does this for fun or work, he answered that he’s doing it for fun since he’s really into AI development and is closely involved with AI Mapping work.
Images | Farhan’s Twitter (@bebopbeebop)
Conclusion
I have met many talented people who choose to follow their passion. Most of the time, these interests are unrelated to their field of study.
In May 2023, major news agencies in Malaysia reported that almost half of our SPM leavers chose not to further their studies in favour of other pathways. Whilst it’s not wrong to do that, personally, I think we should have a base where we can fall back on if things ever go south. I understand that gig work and influencer salary might sound like an immense amount of money, but like perishables, money can be depleted.
Farhan is one of those people who furthered his studies, does his work and still follows his interests. I think it’s an admirable quality and it makes you unique.
