Reels
Me, over the years
171 photos of me from my own library, 2000 to 2026, cut two ways. Version 2 is a music video cut to the beat. Version 1 is the original pair of slideshows: me at work, and me everywhere else. Every photo is cropped so I am the only person in it. I made it with Claude Code as one automated command-line pipeline: a semantic search of my Photos library for “professional photos of Ben” with a local AI image model, Apple Vision to find faces and crop out everyone else, and beats measured from the music, all the way to the finished video.
100% made by AI →the pipeline, from my first question to the encoded videoVersion 2
The music video
3:41 · 190 shots · 171 photos of me and 48 places with nobody in them. Fast cuts and flashing colour; with reduced motion turned on it plays a calm cut. Sound starts only when you press play.
Version 1
The slideshows
Professional Ben
22 photos
Casual Ben
31 photos
Notes
How these were made
AI made both versions end to end, from my request in plain English to the encoded video. The full pipeline, with diagrams and the edit timeline
Version 1
- A script on my Mac read my Apple Photos library, read-only, and kept photos where Photos had tagged my face.
- It dropped screenshots, documents, screens, very dark or blurry shots, and all but the best of any burst.
- A local image model sorted the rest into work and everything else, spread across the years and places.
- Apple Vision found every other face and body. Each photo is cropped so mine is the only face, or it is left out. Nothing is blurred, and a photo with a child in it is skipped unless the child is fully out of frame.
- I checked every photo by eye. The files carry no dates, locations or camera data; the only label is a city, state or country.
- The page plays them as slideshows: 1.2 seconds a photo, a slow pan and zoom, a quick crossfade.
Version 2
- The same 171 photos, with nothing new taken from the library, plus place photos from my travel map with nobody in them.
- A script measured the track (140 beats a minute, with drops at 0:54 and 2:30) and laid every shot on that beat grid, section by section: a cold open, the places, Professional Ben speeding into the first drop, Casual Ben, a slow breakdown, a rebuild, a second drop and a closing mosaic of every photo.
- Apple Vision found my face in each photo, so every crop and zoom moves toward it.
- Your browser draws it live with WebGL, in the neon style of K-pop animation: zoom punches on the kick, colour split, glitch bars, two-tone colour grades, a kaleidoscope, four-up grids and triple panels, a glowing seal, stage lights and sparkles.
- With reduced motion turned on, it plays the same cut without flashes, glitch, shake or spin.
- Version 2: “High Technologic Beat Explosion” by Loyalty Freak Music, from Robot Dance!. CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication).
- Version 1: “Juillet” by Monplaisir, from Bonjour from Paris, Nantes and Montreal. CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication).