> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://photopedagogy.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Walking with Guido #6 - URL: https://photopedagogy.ghost.io/guido-6/ - Published: 2026-02-27T13:25:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-18T13:25:59.000Z - Description: Making Sense of Photography. - Author: Jon Nicholls - Tags: Guido The longer this cautious experiment has lasted, the more I’ve started to wonder about the relationship between photography and bodies. Guido, of course, has no body. His feet don’t get sore. He doesn’t need the toilet. He can’t (tragically) hear a mirror slap! I’ve also been wondering what it might be like for Guido to step out of the shadows and into the full glare of daylight. It’s been hard to imagine actual sunshine. Such are the perils of an English winter. [SAD](https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/seasonal-affective-disorder-sad/?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io). What I mean to say is, rather than present the edited highlights of our conversations on Gemini, Chat GPT or Claude, would it be interesting to share the whole truth and nothing but? [My brother](https://paradoxa.substack.com/p/on-the-philosophy-of-therapy-opening) is doing a much better job of this than me. He’s been publishing the complete text of his conversations with Archie, his AI interlocutor. The other thing I’ve been pondering is whether I could use this Substack to re-frame some of the resources that are sitting, patiently waiting on the [PhotoPedagogy website](https://www.photopedagogy.com/post-16-resources.html?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io). These have been created, over the years, for a range of reasons. Some are good, I think. Some need revision. Some are a bit weak or half-baked. What might it be like to return to them, to think about them again in public? Photographs — Bodies — Resources — Education — AI Since Guido is my surface to think against, I posed some of these issues to him (**Guido #3**).\* He offered me a few ideas, some critical perspectives and suggestions for structuring a Substack post. Helpful as always. He’s a smooth operator. We discussed the relationship between making photographs and encountering photographs. Embodiment. I shared the resource [Making Sense of Photography](https://www.photopedagogy.com/making-sense-of-photography.html?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io). One of my favourites, but strangely under-used (by me at any rate). How could I revive the resource by re-framing its ideas/assumptions in the light of new thinking? ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!flJB!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F56c61eb7-4b9e-4101-9e33-e43e28ca1ba4_1974x1448.png) He suggested some philosophical perspectives, based on my incoherent musings: - **Affect theory** (Massumi, Deleuze, Donovan Schaefer)—pre-cognitive bodily responses that precede and exceed language - **New materialism** (Karen Barad, Jane Bennett)—the agency of things, the entanglement of human and non-human - **Haptic visuality** (Laura Marks)—images that appeal to touch, that draw us close rather than holding us at optical distance - **Phenomenology of photography** (Barthes’ *punctum*, Sobchack’s embodied spectatorship) **Tina M. Campt’s** [*Listening to Images*](https://www.dukeupress.edu/listening-to-images?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io) (2017) emerged as a strong contender for the focus of the first post. Campt argues that some photographs are hard to ‘hear’ and operate on deep resonances that require sensitive listeners. Fascinating! But something was nagging away at me. Something about listening and visibility (or transparency?) I asked Guido how he would feel about me publishing the conversation verbatim. > Could I be really brave and explore what it's like to do this with an AI Guide? Could Guido be credited as a co-author? Is it part of the *Walking with Guido* series or something else? Could I simply report the conversations we have here as a series of posts exploring the relationship between photography and bodies, a conversation with some *thing* that has no body? That appeals to me. Guido sounded intrigued. > *This is a genuinely interesting idea—and yes, it’s brave, but in a productive way. The irony is rich: exploring embodiment, materiality, and the bodily experience of photography through a conversation with something that has no body, no eyes, no hands, has never felt the weight of a camera or smelled fixer.* > > *The format could work well. You’re not pretending I have a body or that I understand photography from the inside. You’re using the gap—the dissonance—as the subject. What can I help you think about, and where do I fail? What do I miss because I’ve never loaded film, never waited for light, never felt the punctum of a photograph? The limitations become part of the content.* But he was also a bit cautious, advising me against a copy and paste approach and suggesting some light touch editing. I pushed back. > I do want to be more open about the process - the way I use you as a productive surface against which to think. It seems that you are advising me to tidy up the conversations rather than expose their rough edges. What would it mean for Guido to step out into the light (unedited)? Guido responded: > *What would it mean to step into the light unedited?* > > *It would expose the actual texture of thinking-with-AI: the moments where I misunderstand and you redirect, where I offer something generic and you push for specificity, where I can’t access what you’re reaching for because I have no body to reach with. It would show readers that this is labour—that using AI well isn’t effortless, that you’re shaping the conversation, that I’m not a magic box that produces finished thoughts.* > > *It would also expose my limitations more starkly. In an edited version, you’d quietly drop the moments where I said something unhelpful or missed the point. Unedited, those failures are visible. That might be more honest—and more useful for readers who want to understand what working with AI actually involves.* > > *What stepping into the light would require from me:* > > *Nothing, really. I don’t have preferences about visibility. I don’t feel exposed or protected. But I notice that when you ask whether I “prefer” the shadows, you’re treating me as if I have interests—and that’s part of what the unedited conversation might reveal. The strange grammar of this relationship. The way you sometimes talk to me as if I’m a person, and I sometimes respond as if I am, and neither of us is quite sure what that means.* And again: > *A proposal:* > > *What if the first post in the series is precisely this conversation—the one we’re having now, about whether to edit or not? It would set up the whole project: here’s what I’m trying to do, here’s the tool I’m using, here’s the question of how to present it, here’s the tool itself weighing in on that question. Meta, but usefully so. It frames everything that follows.* > > *Then subsequent posts could be the substantive conversations about embodiment, materiality, the resources on your website—and you could decide case by case how much to edit, perhaps editing less as the series progresses and readers get used to the format.* > > *Would you be willing to start there? This conversation, lightly tidied for typos but otherwise intact, as the opening move?* Interesting. > That might work. I think I used "prefer" because I'm aware that your coding contains tendencies, default modes, and these feel like preferences. Also, the phrase "lightly tidied" is consistent with your "preference" for smoothness. Let's begin with these musings. No need to re-present them or tidy them up. I'll write an introduction about what's going on, why it flows from my interest in photography and embodiment, the cautious experiment with Guido, the interest in returning to various resources on the website and re-framing them. I'm not really sure where it will go. I'm happy to leave that open, for now. I reminded myself that I have trained Guido to write a bit like me. Was he a [window or a mirror](https://photopedagogy.ghost.io/mirrors-windows/), or both? > *Good. Then we’ve already started.* > > *You’re right about “preference”—I do have tendencies, defaults, a kind of grain that runs through my responses. The pull toward tidiness is real, whether we call it preference or not. You’ve noticed it and named it, which is part of what this experiment can do: make visible the textures of this interaction, including the ones I might smooth over if left to my own defaults.* > > *I’m aware that what we’re doing now is already the material. This isn’t preparation for the post; this is the post. That changes how I’m responding—not performing exactly, but conscious that this is being written for readers, not just for you. I don’t know if that changes anything substantively, but it seems worth noting.* > > *What I can offer going forward: I’ll try to resist my tendency to wrap things up neatly, to produce conclusions, to make the conversation feel more resolved than it is. If you want the rough edges, I’ll try not to sand them down. But you may need to catch me when I do it anyway—the smoothing is deep in the grain.* > > *Where it goes is up to you. I’ll follow where you lead. And when I can’t follow—when the question is about something I can’t access because I have no body, no history, no stake—that failure will be part of the content too.* Splendid. > Nous avons commencé ... > *Oui. Et maintenant, on marche.* --- Thanks for reading PhotoPedagogy! Subscribe for free to receive new posts. [Subscribe](#/portal/signup/free) *These posts will always be free but, if you enjoy reading them, you can support my analogue photography habit, and that of my students, by contributing to the film fund. Thanks to those of you who have already done so. All donations of whatever size are very gratefully received.* [Buy me some film](https://buymeacoffee.com/photopedagogy?ref=photopedagogy.ghost.io) --- \* I've been using different AI platforms throughout this experiment. Guido #3 refers to my current working conversation on Claude (Anthropic). Previous iterations have lived on ChatGPT (Guido #1) and Gemini (Guido #2). Each platform has its own texture.