Photo: Getty Images
It's hard not to wonder what musicians who died at a young age would look like if they were given the opportunity to grow old. Turkish photographer/lawyer Alper Yesiltas had that same question, so he used AI technology to imagine what artists like Kurt Cobain, Freddie Mercury, John Lennon and more would look like if they were still alive today in a project titled "As If Nothing Ever Happened."
“With the development of AI technology, I’ve been excited for a while, thinking that ‘anything imaginable can be shown in reality,'” Yesiltas wrote about 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 continued. "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.”
To create the portraits, Yesiltas used software like AI photo enhancer Remini and Adobe Lightroom and VSCO.
The collection also features images of Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, Tupac, Bruce Lee, Heath Ledger, Michael Jackson and Jimi Hendrix. The full project can be viewed here. Yesiltas also shares photos on his personal Instagram account.