The Saudi Visual Lens

Seconds brought back to life

From our recent history we have only a few photographs, most of them black and white, taken by travellers and passing photographers with primitive cameras. We look at them and see frozen moments: men standing still, motionless horses, a sky without movement.

The Saudi Visual Lens is an experiment that sets these photographs running again. Put your cursor on any photo and it turns into a cinematic scene in colour: the dust moves, the cloth flutters, the light shifts.

Every scene is built on the photograph itself, not on imagining it: the clothing as it was, the place as it was, the time as it was. What we add is motion, light and colour, the things that were there the day the photo was taken and the camera could not keep.

Two collections

• Memory of Place: Archive photographs starting from Al-Balad in Jeddah, then Najd, the south and the east.
• Before the Sands: Prehistoric life on the land of the Kingdom, from published scientific discoveries. Watch footage from it

What we commit to

• Every clip is labelled as an AI reconstruction, in the clip itself and in its description.
• A source card under every clip: the original, the place, the date, the institution, and what was rebuilt.
• We don't animate the face of a public figure or anyone identifiable, and faces in rebuilt scenes are imagined and do not depict specific people.
• We don't rebuild images of Makkah, Madinah or the holy rites.

Have an archive?

If you hold a collection of historical photographs, we bring it back to motion with its sources, and show it on your platform and on the Time Map.

Talk to us about your archive