A.I. comes to Jackson & Fillmore

By JONATHAN PONTELL

Being something of a history buff, photographer and storyteller, it’s not unusual to find me online looking for vintage photos of the neighborhood near our home at Broadway and Fillmore. Coming across two photos taken just a couple of blocks from our building was a lucky find. They looked like perfect pictures to provide some fun.

The photos from Fillmore of the north and south sides of Jackson in the 1940s, with color added.

Then I began experimenting with ChatGPT. I call him Chet. We developed an easy working relationship early on. I could type a request or download an image through Chet’s “ask me anything” portal. “Put some red, white and blue bunting over the top edge of the building.” Then, 90 seconds later, Chet sends the image. “Too big; try again.” After 90 seconds more, Chet sends a refined image. “The texture seems off.” After 90 more seconds, Chet sends another image. “Make that car a delivery truck and put it closer to the curb. It feels a little too big.” It gets done.

The original photos were taken in the mid-1940s, so a World War II scene seemed appropriate. Online I found the ads for Camels, the WPA and the Buy Liberty Bonds poster. Chet gave me the Cream of Wheat ad, the street sign and the mailbox, converted cars into trucks and returned the Mayflower Market to the days when it housed Rexall Drugs. When I asked for an A&P coffee ad — yes, A&P did have a presence in California in those years — Chet found a perfect age-appropriate image.

The imagined north and south sides of the intersection, with help from artificial intelligence.

When I began altering the two black and white snapshots — one featuring the Century Market, now Gino’s; the other showing the Mayflower Market, formerly Rexall Drugs — I thought of them as two separate entities. Putting the two photographs together into one cohesive scene had occurred to me, but I initially dismissed the idea, assuming that differing angles, sizes and points of view would make that impossible.

After going back and forth with Chet more than 20 times, he seamlessly put the two images together.

Fillmore and Jackson didn’t really look like this in the mid-40s. But it did in my imagination, with a little help from my new ChatGPT friend Chet.