I wanted to share with you all my latest obsession, turning old family photos into animations with AI. This all began this past weekend when this picture came up in my Facebook Memories of my parents first date in the early 1960’s. I've always loved this photo, you can see so much attraction in their eyes. They had their entire life in front of them.
I had been hearing a lot about Grok/Imagine over the previous few days so I thought I’d upload this photo and see what Imagine could do. This is the animation it created.
My mind was blown. To me, this felt like possessing a time machine and seeing little glimpses of the past that I wasn’t around yet to witness.
As I began uploading photos of relatives that passed away before I was born in 1971 and it was a little like meeting them, even if for a brief moment, for the first time.
For families, like ours who never could even think of being able to afford a video camera, this is a pretty big deal. Seeing these photos come to life feels a little like magic and illicts a very real emotional response.
I’m almost embarrassed by how much time I spent converting old family pictures last Sunday afternoon. I just kept telling myself I need to convert as many pictures as I can before they start charging some astronomical price for this feature.
Here are a few more of them and a little context under each.
This isn't perfect, yet. It changes the faces slightly but this is only going to get better from this point. I can’t help but imagine (no pun intended) how this tech might progress when AI can produce holographic video from a photo. Those who’re lucky enough to have video of older relatives will be able to create almost an indistinguishable avatar and “visit” with them from time-to-time. We're moving into a strange, new world and I have to say it's not all bad.
All for now. Thanks for reading.