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Quite aside from the fact that the author thoroughly describes the experience as one which images on a screen can't convey, that kind of photo would be a serious project in its own right to make. Difficult low-light conditions where no light can be added, and an event of a few seconds' duration that occurs once every 24 hours - those are more challenging circumstances than any under which I've ever shot, and I shoot wild and lively wasps in 1:1 macro from six inches away.

A professional photographer would likely be able to approach the task with more aplomb than I, of course. But it seems unlikely the writer is also one of those; most writers aren't. So now we need a second person on the story. That's a lot more expensive, and given the demands of the project maybe also difficult to find one who'll take it and who you can count on. It adds a lot of complexity to the project if you try to do that.

And even for a pro, actually getting the shot is going to be enough of a production that the writer will probably talk about it some in the text. So now people on social media are going to complain about that, because somebody always will, about anything. (Cf. this thread.)

And for what? Either a frozen instant, probably noisy, that doesn't convey the magic of the moment, or an again probably hard-to-make-out video that - again as suggested in the article - would look just like a timelapse, or like a bad timelapse. So now people on social media are complaining you used AI. Because somebody always will. And it still doesn't convey the moment.

When a writer explains that no imagery is included because it could only disappoint, you should respect that. Instead the writer trusts the reader to be a human being, endowed with powers of imagination on at least some scale. There are times it does you good to use those. This is one.



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