Wait, He Actually Removed His Dad From All His Childhood Photos?!

So, it all started when William Josephs Radford was flipping through family albums in 2026. He noticed something odd: not many photos of him with his dad.

He thought, “Hmm, that’s kinda weird.” It hit him hard that maybe his memory of his dad was shaped a lot by the few pictures he actually had.

Turns out, photos don’t just freeze moments - they shape how we remember people.

William started asking himself: Was his dad really missing from most of his childhood, or did the lack of photos and the stories his mom told him change how he remembered his dad?

He spent six months using Photoshop and AI to yank his dad out of every childhood photo and rebuild the background like his dad was never there.

It was a first for him to mess with generative tools, and boy, was it tricky.

The editing was a slow game - sometimes a photo came together in a snap; other times, it took weeks. He even joked about the AI thinking a plant was a person. Classic AI mix-up!

He had to rely both on what the photos showed and his memory, like the color of a pillow or the pattern on a plate, to fill in the gaps after removing his dad.

Next up: how to show off these pixel-powered magic tricks? William tried a bunch of ideas, from making his dad look like a ghost to filling his spot with sky pictures.

The winning hack? Lenticular prints! These are like those images that change as you move around.

So when you look at the photos, you’ll see his dad fade in and out, like a real-life disappearing act. Way cooler than just before and after shots.

With Transparent, William finishes his emotional photo journey by reminding us how photos and stories can twist how we remember the ones we've lost.

It’s a cool mix of art, memory, and tech that makes you think about what photos really mean.