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AI portraits show what Hendrix, Cobain and other late guitarists might look like today
Entitled “As If Nothing Happened”, the portraits include Freddie Mercury, Kurt Cobain and John Lennon.
Image: Alper Yesiltas
In a new series of celebrity portraits, a photographer has envisioned how some of the biggest names in the guitar world would look if they were still alive in 2022.
Have you ever wondered how John Lennon, Kurt Cobain or Jimi Hendrix would look if they were still around today? Photographer Alper Yesiltas has attempted to answer that very question, creating a range of images entitled As If Nothing Happened.
Using AI technology, the artist has artificially adapted photos of some of the most famous guitarists of all time, generating a portrait of how he thinks they would look if they hadn’t passed away prematurely.
“With the development of AI technology, I’ve been excited for a while, thinking that ‘anything imaginable can be shown in reality,’” Yesiltas wrote in the original post, describing why he pursued the project. “When I started tinkering with technology, I saw what I could do and thought about what would make me the happiest. I wanted to see some of the people I missed again in front of me and that’s how this project emerged.”
“The hardest part of the creative process for me is making the image feel ‘real’ to me,” he continues to write. “The moment I like the most is when I think the image in front of me looks very realistic as if it was taken by a photographer.”
Musicians such as Janis Joplin, Freddie Mercury, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley are also included in the range of portraits, as well as famous faces from the world of film, including Heath Ledger and Bruce Lee.
Explaining how he rendered the ten images used in the project, Yesiltas states he used software including the AI photo enhancer Remini and photo-editing programmes VSCO and Adobe Lightroom.
Elsewhere in his initial post, the creator also admits that he is looking to extend the project in the future, possibly under the new title of Life in 2050.
Find the full collection of portraits on the photographer’s post.