International Authority
for AI-Free Photography (IAAFP)

AI-Free Photography certification example by IAAFP

Founder and Convenor:
Arman Q. Valaquenta

Founder and Chairman, Dauðalogn Holdings Limited

Founder and Chairman, Nirvana

Founder and Principal Artist,
Essëa Photographic Arts Limited

Founding Member and Secretariat:

The entire 200-year-old art form of photography and the global industry that sustains it face an existential threat.

The IAAFP recognises that generative systems will soon enable anyone to produce and print high-fidelity images indistinguishable from authentic photographs, including 16-bit TIFF files that appear to originate from top-end camera systems, and rendered in the style of any great master or living artist, for example in the style of William Eggleston, Wynn Bullock, Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson or Annie Leibovitz.

Such capability, including in-camera style emulation at the moment of capture, will flood the market with convincing imitations, erode the premium placed on authenticity, and endanger artists’ livelihoods and legacies of working photographers. The IAAFP exists to provide a decisive signal of authenticity that galleries, collectors, institutions, and the public can trust.

This is an invitation to leadership. The art world’s authority on what is real in photography must be built by those who care most about it. Help us ensure that human‑made photography commands the trust and value it deserves - now and for future generations.

Founding Patrons:

Globally recognised institutions whose early leadership underwrites
IAAFP's public-interest infrastructure and signals an historic commitment
to human-made photography at launch.

To be announced

Founding Members:

Principal institutions whose early commitments underwrite
IAAFP's public‑interest infrastructure

To be announced

Member Galleries:

Galleries supporting the mission.

To be announced

Institutional Members:

Organisations aligned with the mission.

IAAFP Fellows:

Photographers or their estates recognised for extraordinary contributions
to human‑made photography and integrity of practice.

To be announced

Artist Members:

Individual photographers who support the mission
and uphold provenance‑first practice.

Mission:

To safeguard public trust and the value of human-made photography by certifying images that show no material evidence of artificial intelligence (AI) generation or manipulation, issuing per-image, hash-bound certificates, maintaining a public verification registry, accrediting independent laboratories, and promoting provenance-first practice across capture, editing, and distribution.

IAAFP Artist Member Pledge

(Membership Code of Practice)

Purpose. To affirm a shared standard for photography in public life and to signal solidarity with artists who choose human-made practice.

Scope. This pledge applies to any work I publish, exhibit, sell, or represent as photography under my name, regardless of venue or medium. It does not restrict non-photographic media that are clearly labelled as such.

1) Commitment

If choose to make images with AI generation or AI manipulation, I will label them clearly as AI-generated or AI-manipulated works.

I will create and present as photography only images that I made by raising a camera and actuating the shutter (including by remote under my control) and that show no material evidence of artificial intelligence (AI) generation or AI manipulation. If choose to make images with AI generation or AI manipulation, I will label them clearly as AI-generated or AI-manipulated works.

2) What I will not do

For works I present as photography, I will not:

use generative, prompt-driven, inpainting/outpainting, or content-aware tools to add, remove, replace, or invent scene content (people, objects, skies, text);
perform face or identity swaps, anatomy reshaping, AI "beautification", or relighting that fabricates non-captured light;
combine frames from different times or places without clear disclosure that the result is a creative composite, not a single photograph.

3) What is acceptable practice (non-semantic edits)

I may crop; rotate; correct perspective; adjust tone/colour; apply lens/sensor corrections; remove sensor dust or scan specks; convert to monochrome; denoise/sharpen without inventing detail; and fuse my own contiguous frames for HDR, panoramas, or focus stacks.

4) Instrument Assistance Clause

I understand that machine-learning features inside cameras or phones (focus, metering, demosaicing, tone mapping, multi-frame fusion of my own frames) do not, by themselves, breach this pledge provided no external pixels are introduced and no scene elements are added, removed, or semantically altered.

5) Truthful labelling

If I choose to make images with AI generation or AI manipulation, I will always label them clearly as AI-generated or AI-manipulated work.

6) Community conduct

I support provenance-first practice and the education of audiences. I will keep originals (RAWs or original JPEG/HEIC and relevant sidecars/manifests) for works I present as photography.

7) Consequences and due process

IAAFP may suspend or revoke my Artist Member recognition (and publish a brief notice) if credible evidence shows I breached this pledge. I will be given notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond and to appeal under IAAFP procedures. No damages or financial penalties apply.

Note: Upon acceptance, you will be asked to submit a logo for display on the IAAFP website.

Founding Member and Secretariat:

Founding Patrons:

Founding Members:

Member Galleries:

Institutional Members:

IAAFP Fellows:

Artist Members:

Mission:

IAAFP Artist Member Pledge

(Membership Code of Practice)

1) Commitment

2) What I will not do

3) What is acceptable practice (non-semantic edits)

4) Instrument Assistance Clause

5) Truthful labelling

6) Community conduct

7) Consequences and due process

Thank you!