Most of you readers know my penchant for the ocassional posting featuring "then and now" photos. They show a landmark/place usually as it once was and as it is now, preferably with one of my motorcycles somewhere in the "now" picture.
Martha, my loving wife, discovered by accident (through googling) a website that provides a source of "then" pictures, superimposed onto Google's StreetView feature of Google Maps. Very cool.
I'd been lucky to have access to a huge repository of archival photos of yesterday, courtesy of the Denver Public Library. Now perhaps, you can access photos from near you, to see what was there before and what is there now.
Here's a link to the site: LINK
It's name is whatwasthere.com and its superimposing feature of old onto new allows you to adjust the opacity of the "then" shot so you can see where it fits on the Google StreetView photo that is "now". For the most part, the photos are aligned pretty well.
Near the Brown Palace Hotel in Downtown Denver
The Trinity Methodist Church near where I work in
Downtown Denver.
Not a bad little tool for the quick creation of "then and now" shots I believe. It also gives me the idea of figuring out how to do the same in photoshop, with future "then and now" shots of mine, so they'll include a shot of my motorcycle choice of the day as well.
Hope you like this site, and that it inspires some "then and now" postings of your own. The site is North-American-centric for now, but perhaps as folks upload their own shots and the coverage of Google Maps Streetview spreads further.....
14 comments:
Cool! Can't wait to check it out. I think there's a guy on either pashnit or ADVrider who does some before/after photos in photoshop with similar results. Fun stuff.
Thanks for the link. There are only few from Germany, alas non of the region I grew up in but maybe people will continue to donate pics and fill up this beautiful picture library.
Okay, that is just way cool. Thanks for sharing and thanks Martha for the neat find.
They actually have a few pics in our area too.
Very cool site.
Another similar site I've followed for a while is Dear Photograph (http://dearphotograph.com/).
It's given me some great ideas on morphing old and new photos.
Good post!
Dan
Wow, this is cool. Thanks!
Thanks Bluekat, perhaps there will stuff near you.
That would be real cool Sonja, I wonder how many photos that have survived till now will be made available
Trobairitz perhaps you can shoot some then and now pics as well!
Thanks Dan, the site you mention is known to me and very cool.
You're welcome Lucky, let us know if you find some sights near you
Only a handful around here and the StreetViews don't line up very well. But interesting site. I ended up looking into a lot of other areas...
Yeah, the software they're using sometimes fails....still, a neat concept by our benign overlords at Google
Wow! Pictures like these are my favorite features at museums and such. I want to contribute a few of some older, rural communities in my area that were ravaged by fires 100 years ago...
Thanks for the tip!
Thanks Morgan, for the kind words, I hope you find some good stuff around you.
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