About
Richard Cawood is a UK-born portrait photographer, educator, and creative based in Dubai. His work blends decades of experience in design, media, and education with a minimalist photographic style that seeks honesty, emotion, and presence in every frame.
Richard’s portrait series The Faces of the Unknown is composed entirely of AI-generated imagery, created to explore the eerie space of the uncanny valley and challenge our perception of what feels real. His more recent project, The Faces of Mexico, combines both real and AI-generated portraits, emerging as a direct response to rising anti-immigrant sentiment. Together, these two series examine the evolving relationship between photography, truth, and perception in an age where reality can be convincingly simulated.
Richard’s style, often described as emotive minimalism, is grounded in simplicity, precision, and a desire to reveal the quiet dignity in every face, whether real or imagined.
He studied photography as an undergraduate and earned a master’s degree in electronic media, both from the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP). He has worked across the US, Europe, and the Middle East, with past collaborations that include global brands like Nike, Virgin America, and Hulu. His photography has been featured by ZEISS and published internationally.
He currently teaches at Zayed University’s College of Arts and Creative Enterprises (CACE) in Dubai and continues to explore how emerging technologies like AI are reshaping the way we see, feel, and create. You can connect with Richard on LinkedIn.
This is an AI-Infused Space
The Faces of the Unknown is more than a portfolio. It is a collaborative space where human creativity and artificial intelligence meet in unexpected ways. The portraits, as many of you know, are fully AI-generated, but the use of AI does not stop with the images. The writing on this site is also part of the exploration. I use AI not as a shortcut, but as a creative and intellectual companion, writing in conversation with a language model to shape, challenge, and sometimes surprise my thinking.
This process may still feel uncomfortable to some, and I understand that. In fact, the discomfort is part of what interests me: where authorship begins and ends, how we judge what feels real, and what it means to create in a world where our tools think back.
I believe it is important to be transparent about how this work is made, not to diminish it, but to deepen your understanding of what you are engaging with. The tension between human and machine, between intuition and code, and between presence and simulation is the point.
This project is not just about what you see; it is about how you see. As you scroll, you step into an experiment that challenges the boundaries between image and intention, face and frame.