Our Ghiblified date

Log Entry 6: 2025-05-03 KST

Update

I jumped on the Ghibli train. First date in a while with my wife (newborn twins) and we had fun animating the date.

Observation

In line with the example we’re trying to set for the twins—to be creators, not consumers—I made a photo album of our day. Most of my iPhone’s camera roll is work screenshots. But on this date I switched it up. I took pictures throughout the date and sent them to ChatGPT with a simple prompt like:

Make a photo of this image in the style of Ghibli Studio. Make sure to capture the rain, but don't make it too gloomy...

Ghibli Studio style has somehow become the TikTok trend of AI generated images. I chose to hop on board. By the end of the date I had these images to send my wife:

Waiting for the subway to take us to Hannam Dong, Seoul.

Walking through heavy rain to the restaurant, Keem.

Waiting for our meal to arrive and enjoying the open kitchen, and tasteful interior design at Keem.

Roasted Romain, Humus plate, Bangers and Mash, cajun fries.

Chocolate bun, and coffee at a nearby cafe with the most uncomfortable chairs and tables imaginable.

Mini donuts at a donut shop with a huge mural of mythical Korean General Yi Sun-sin sailing into battle with a boat full of donuts. (strange that my wife looks taller than me)

My wife shopping for urban style clothing, which I don’t like. (Shopping or urban style clothing)

Again, shopping. This time for make up products.

Catching a break in the rain, and discovering a beautiful pathway to where we wanted to go.

I worked in a cafe while my wife got her hair styled. She walked into the cafe like a runway model.

Taking the subway home

I sent the images to my wife and she loved them. She immediately asked how to make them herself. Turns out that although she pays for ChatGPT ($20/month), she doesn’t have access to the upgraded image model. Some premium users are randomly stuck with DALL·E 3, which doesn’t do stylized images very well.

So I built her a workaround. I wrote a quick and dirty script using the gpt-image-1 API and set it up on her computer. Now she can generate Ghibli (or any other style) images locally.

I shared it on github here. You can pull it to your computer, and create images with your own OpenAI API key.

Capsule Note

There’s always an opportunity to create, even if it’s small, cliche or unimpressive. It’s better than not creating at all.

Signing off, message set for future delivery.
– David