Alone with the Earth
A conversation with photographer Cody Cobb on solitude, discovery, and human vision.
By Nando Costa
From what I’ve read, you spend weeks alone in remote wilderness areas, sometimes walking 15-20 miles a day.
What fills the time between photographs? Are those hours spent in introspection, or do you find other ways to occupy your mind during these extended solitary journeys?
The rhythm of traversing large spaces for hours at a time temporarily quiets my overly analytical mind. I’m not trying to fill the hours so much as empty them. The wilderness has taught me patience. I can’t force these encounters with light and shadow. I wait for them and watch the subtleties in front of me.
In the long stretches between photographs I’m learning the language of a place. I watch how light travels across it, where shadows pool, the paths of clouds, and which details persist despite the wind.
The hardest part is knowing when to pause my forward momentum to set up and make a photograph. I don’t always get that right.
Photos shot on a Mamiya 645 and Kodak Portra 400 film
I was first introduced to your animation work and later discovered your art practice. Can you walk us through how you've maintained this dual practice of both traditional artmaking and motion design for major tech companies?
What does each domain give you that the other cannot, and how do they inform each other?
I was drawn to art from an early age and studied it in college in the late 90s. Around that time, someone in a class showed me a Flash animation, and I fell in love instantly. That moment changed my trajectory. I became fascinated with making animations that could give a viewer a feeling. Using Flash and later After Effects became the tools I used first for artistic experiments and eventually for paid client work.
It began with small design shops during the dot-com boom, then led to well-established motion design studios and later to tech companies. It all unfolded very organically. In many ways, I feel like I did not choose this path, it chose me, and for that I am grateful.
Although I use very similar tools, each domain feeds me differently. Client work means solving problems alongside large teams, coming up with solutions that, if we do it right, impact millions of users. My art practice is the opposite: it allows me to go deeper into questions of memory, identity, and what it means to be human in this time and place.
Here I am not looking for answers, but for dialogue, for works that create space for questions to live. Making art is a fortunate necessity for me. I have always felt the need to make things in order to understand my place in the world and my surroundings.
AI-Generated images created by Anthony
Has AI or automation found a place in your creative workflow? If so, how do you integrate it, and what do you think about the increasing role of machine intelligence in art?
I suppose, but I tend to struggle with this idea. I’ll shoot a place/space and then run the photos through software to obtain a point cloud or gaussian splatt.
Technically there is some automation there, but that wouldn’t exist without the photos. Photogrammetry has been around for a long time, so it becomes suspicious when older methods are being repurposed as “AI.”
The simulations in my work are all meticulously done with Houdini. It would be nice to have a one click answer, but the rewards of the process would be lost.
I think the increasing role of machine intelligence has been fueled by the monetization of digital art. Machine learning has been around and really took off during the digital art boom. I think it’s an interesting time, but I’m still waiting for it to push art in an unseen direction, if that is even possible.
Personally, I have experimented with training models and loras. There is a science in training, which is really fun. One of my early experiments was training a lora on my cat and that’s been a lot of fun. In terms of generations, I find it more in line with curating, rather than creating.
There’s a growing conversation about AI-generated art and its place in the creative world. Do you see it as a collaborator, a tool, or a threat?
I think it could be all. It’s important to have an open mind. Can or will it help you, and of most importance, does it make you happy?
In my use cases I see AI as a tool. I try to simplify the use and ask the question: is there art before the use of AI? If not, then there definitely needs to be some regrouping.
Where do you personally draw the line between "art made by a human with digital assistance" and "AI-generated art"? Do you think that distinction will matter in the future?
It’s in the look and feel. I find a lot of AI to be easily recognizable and eerily similar. I don’t think the distinction matters once it’s stylized and unique.
How would you feel if AI were eventually able to re-create a look exactly as another artist? If aesthetics can be replicated, how do we value human craft?
AI can easily re-create an artist’s style and look with the right dataset. We value human craft because AI would not exist without human craft.
any young artists feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of tools available today. If you were starting out now, how would you approach learning, developing your style, and most importantly, a distinct point of view?
If I were starting out now, I would try to go to art school or at least visit nearby museums and research the greats. Truly know their lives and practices. I would also make sure I understand why I like something…not just on the surface level, but the innate reasons why.
To me, a lot of my art stems from experimenting. It’s vital to not be afraid of experimentation. Style comes with time, but aligns well with constant exposure to styles. A distinct point of view comes from being receptive to your feelings.
Well said. Is there a piece of advice you wish you had received when you were starting out?
Start a dream journal.
