Reimagined + Remixed

Using AI To Bring Vintage Photos To Life

GAY DADS KISSING BY J. ROSS BAUGHMAN (1983) // REIMAGINED + REMIXED BY CLINT COLLIDE (2025)

Over the past few months, I’ve fallen down more than a few rabbit holes—most of them involving technology, traditional art, and vintage photography.

What started as casual tinkering with tech tools has become an honest-to-goodness hobby. In my free time, I find myself revisiting both new and old “friends” by breathing (artificial) life into old photos. With the help of AI video generators, I’m taking frozen moments from decades past and reimagining them in subtle, respectful ways.

So much of LGBTQ history lives inside private snapshots and stolen glances. Many of these images were never meant for public view. They survived by chance—tucked in shoeboxes, passed down quietly, digitized without context. Often the names of the subjects have been lost to time, and what remains is just a glimpse of a moment that once meant everything to someone.

When I first started, I thought I’d only be “recoloring” and “restoring” old photos. But the deeper I went, the more ways I discovered to bring them to life. The faces in these images—smiling, serious, hopeful, guarded—remind me that our history isn’t only about big milestones or famous figures; it’s also about the everyday lives and fleeting joys that make life worth living.

And behind those small, tender moments is the ongoing struggle for representation and respect—people carving out space for themselves and for one another in a world that often tried to erase us.

With AI, I experiment gently: enhancing details so faces emerge, animating portraits to suggest movement, and colorizing black-and-white scenes to make them feel more immediate. My goal isn’t to “fix” the past but to build an emotional bridge—one that lets us experience these moments with fresh eyes while still respecting their origins.

For me, there’s something profoundly moving about seeing vintage photos come to life. It feels a little like stepping into a time machine, even if only for a few fleeting seconds. I often hold my breath as the images shift from static artifacts to animated glimpses of our collective, colorful history—even when the photos remain in greyscale or sepia tones.

For me, this work isn’t about showing off what technology can do—it’s about using tech tools to express what I feel when I sit with these photos. Each one feels like holding someone’s memory in my hands.

Working on these reimagined remixes has become a quiet act of remembrance, a way of saying, I see you. You were here. You mattered.

If nothing else, my new hobby has taught me that technology and memory can meet in beautiful ways—helping to personalize and preserve history, and reminding us to pause and appreciate the photos and stories that have survived.

Keep calm and carry on!
Clint 🌈✌️

COLLIDE PRESS is a reader-supported publication.
Please consider becoming a Paid Subscriber or Patron.

FYC = FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

• The Story Behind The Photograph: Gay Dads Kissing, 1983
  (National Museum Of American History)

• PalCinema Review: The Baltimorons (Dan Pal)

• Video Games Made Me Gay (Brenden O'Donnell)

---

ON THIS DAY = SEPTEMBER 10

BIRTHDAYS

• 1487 = Pope Julius III = Head of the Roman Catholic church 🌈

• 1886 = H.D. = American writer 🌈

• 1894 = Alexander Dovzhenko = Soviet filmmaker of Ukrainian origin

• 1914 = Robert Wise = American director and producer

• 1929 = Arnold Palmer = American golfer and businessman

• 1931 = Philip Baker Hall = American actor

• 1933 = Karl Lagerfeld = German-French fashion designer and photographer 🌈

• 1934 = Charles Kuralt = American journalist

• 1935 = Mary Oliver = American poet

• 1937 = Daniel Defert = French sociologist and activist 🌈

• 1945 = José Feliciano = Puerto Rican singer-songwriter

• 1950 = Joe Perry = American singer-songwriter

• 1953 = Amy Irving = American actor

• 1958 = Chris Columbus = American filmmaker

• 1958 = Siobhan Fahey = Irish singer-songwriter

• 1959 = Michael Earl = American actor, singer, and puppeteer

• 1960 = Alison Bechdel = American cartoonist 🌈

• 1960 = Colin Firth = English actor and producer

• 1968 = Big Daddy Kane = American rapper, producer, and actor

• 1968 = Guy Ritchie = English filmmaker

• 1969 = Johnathon Schaech = American actor, producer, and screenwriter

• 1972 = James Duval = American actor and producer

• 1974 = Ryan Phillippe = American actor and producer

• 1979 = Jacob Young = American actor

• 1984 = Harry Treadaway = English actor

• 1984 = Luke Treadaway = English actor

• 1987 = Alex Saxon = American actor

EVENTS

• 1846 = Elias Howe is granted a patent for the sewing machine.

• 1924 = Leopold and Loeb are found guilty of the kidnapping and murder of teenager Bobby Franks in Chicago in "the crime of the century."

LEOPOLD + LOEB (1924)

• 1955 = Gunsmoke premieres on CBS.

• 1987 = Clive Barker’s directorial debut, Hellraiser, is released in theaters.

• 1991 = “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana is released as a single.

• 1993 = The X-Files premieres on Fox.

HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES

• Gibraltar National Day

• National Swap Ideas Day

• National TV Dinner Day

• World Suicide Prevention Day

---

PORTRAIT + QUOTE OF THE DAY

KARL LAGERFELD AT PIERRE BALMAIN (1954)

“When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said —and this was 100 years ago in Germany and she was very open-minded —'It's like hair color. It's nothing. Some people are blond and some people have dark hair. It's not a subject.' This was a very healthy attitude.”
Karl Lagerfeld

“Bears are very nice, as long as you are nice to them.”
Karl Lagerfeld