Photography in the AI Age:

29 September 2026

Victoria Aspden from Eastside Educational Trust (Eastside) tells us about some of the steps they are taking to explore safer image use, including adapting a building project already in motion.

At Eastside (in Hackney, London) we run participatory workshops and programmes for young people both in and outside of school settings. Our projects aim to empower all young people through inclusive arts and creative programmes, nurturing creativity, building confidence and skills, and creating pathways to creative careers. In the 2025-206 academic year we reached 14,800 unique children and young people delivering over 2000 workshops, and engaging more than 10,500 young people digitally.

Photography is an important element of documenting and sharing our work, but due to the recent developments of generative artificial intelligence and issues around social media, we are considering changing our approach to protect the children we work with.

Changing course: having the courage to reimagine a project already in motion

Earlier this year, we undertook a capital building project that was supported by Hackney Council's Affordable Workspace Fund and Foundation for Future London to make our building more accessible. This work included improving wheelchair access, introducing wayfinding and redesigning the outside of the building to make it easier for people to recognise, find us, and know who we are and what we do. This included new signage and some window vinyls.

With the help of our designer Lee Simmons, we put together a visual story of how we wanted the building to look. Up the side of the building, we had beautiful arts and culture wording going up two window panes, our logo and a QR code, and included on the vinyls were images of some of the people that we'd worked with (not just children but a range of ages including young people, adults and teachers too) to give a sense of the broad range of the type of work that we do and the communities we work with. We made sure all the correct permissions were in place and everyone was happy with our plans for where the images would appear. We were all set to go, and the week we were going into the production process, I attended A New Direction’s AI Roundtable discussion.

At the discussion, Adam Power-Annand from Speech Bubbles spoke about the decision to stop using images of children because of the safety risk from generative artificial intelligence (which you can read about in the blog here). It made me think very carefully about Eastside’s responsibility in using images. I am also a mum, and I don't allow any image taking of my children for any marketing purposes. So I thought: hang on a minute, I'm at a crossroads: me, as a mother, I wouldn't want this, but at the same time we need to promote, advertise, and illustrate and explain to people through images, what our work is and what we do. I went away from that meeting feeling very uncomfortable about it and so I decided: I don't think we can do this, we need to adapt the project.

I was concerned that:

• Even though everyone had consented, someone could change their mind in the future.

• Somebody could take a photo of the building and through generative AI distort it, change it, and manipulate it.

• Our priorities were wrong. What was more important - an attractive building front or protecting people’s identities?

The impact was:

• I had to have a difficult conversation with our brilliant designer (she was very understanding!) and explained that the designs we had signed off and about to send to production needed to be changed.

• We had to think more creatively about how to get Eastside’s visual identity across in a way that safeguarded the people we worked with.

• The install of the window vinyls were delayed and there were some financial and time costs incurred.

As a youth arts charity, we feel it's more important to protect the images of the children, so even though it was a big compromise for us and not an easy decision: it was one that felt morally right. Everybody at Eastside, and involved in the process including our production company Fenlands, understood our reasons why and supported the decision.

Using images on social media

Following this, we also started to think about how we were using some of our images on social media. We used some photos of children we worked with to promote our Celebrating Diversity workshops and we used a variety of different headings to test out what wording worked best on Instagram and Facebook. Worryingly the images on Facebook got trolled by negative comments.

We learned that some thinking needs to be done if you are going to use images on social media, such as considering:

• The wording that's connected to the use of the image.

• The platform you use and what groups might be on it specifically targeting certain topics for trolling.

• The images you use in the context that you work.

Rethinking our catalogue of images

Alongside this, we did a full audit of all the images that we currently hold in Eastside’s database. The company is 31 years old so obviously, we've got a huge history of images that aren't digitalized, but we have a lot of images that go back to 1994! It has taken months, but we have created our own catalogue which categorises each image including: the title of the image, what it is, who took it and when, who owns the copyright, a link to the contract with the school, and the permission form for photography. It's all been centralized and secured, and any image that is not identifiable, or that we can't find the details for, has been archived or deleted.

Finding a balance for future work

We are now looking into how we can still capture pictures from our work, but in a way that protects the people we work with. We're not in a position to stop documenting our work through photography just yet but there are steps we are taking to conceal identities while still representing our work.

During the summer term we ran a project called Artists in Residence which offers funded six week residencies in schools in select London boroughs. This year we decided to experiment, so we commissioned a photographer for one of the festivals, but without capturing any of the children’s faces, instead they captured images of their work, hands, backs of heads, bird's eye views, and long shots with blurred faces. The results were exciting and it has inspired us to use these images to create a new trailer for the programme too. We will continue to play with the way we document our work in the months to come before sitting down and looking at the images and comparing those where we can't see the children versus the images that we can see the children, and analyse: can you still see what they're doing? Is it telling the story of our work and who we are and what we do, and demonstrating, most importantly, the impact, but in a way that protects the children more?

I'm interested to hear more from other colleagues in the industries about how they are tackling it because alternatives to photography can be much more costly.

Is Eastside going to say that from now on we're not going to use any images of children? Not right now but by the end of the academic year - perhaps? As a team Eastside is thinking more responsibly about where and how we use our images, and there could be a future in which we don't use images in social media, particularly with the social media ban coming up for schools.

Victoria Aspden, Director or Learning and Engagement, is responsible for the strategic direction, development and evaluation of all learning, participation, and engagement activity across the organisation. She ensures the quality, impact and growth of the organisation, and its programmes portfolio, align with Eastside’s Business plan and core strategies.

For further tips and considerations on photography safeguarding and AI, download our resource Safeguarding and Gen AI: Photography of Children

Do you want to join the conversation about how to tackle issues around AI and working with children and young people? Sign-up to join our working group

Read more blogs on the topic of AI in our AI & Young People Library