Recreate the Rest of the Scene

Recreate the Rest of the Scene

ISO: 1600

Shutter speed: 1/25

Aperture: f/16

How did you match the scene in the old photo to the modern scene? Did you control the light, composition, etc?

• To match the scenes, I moved our cars on the street so that the Ford Expedition in the photograph from 15 years ago was in almost the same place. I also cleaned all the leaves off our grass to make sure there weren't any in the new photo since the original image was taken during summer and there were no leaves on the ground at that time. Even though my family has relandscaped our front yard since the original photograph was taken, I was still able to get an angle that aligned pretty closely with the old lawn, sidewalk, and trees. I used natural lighting because the original image was shot in these conditions. 

What do you like best about this photo?

• I like the meaning behind this photo. This was captured the morning before our first day of school when I was 3 and my two older sisters were 5 and 6. I was still in preschool and did not need to wear the same uniform sweatshirt as them, but I chose to do so in order for us all to match. Now that my sisters are away at college (one is 20 and the other is 21), we do not get to spend time all together very often. My sisters and I found this photo when sorting through old albums over Thanksgiving break, so this makes me feel like, as different as things are now, they're really still the same in many ways. 

What would you do differently if you did it again? What would make it better?

• Originally, I went to Twin Peaks in San Francisco to recreate a photo my mom captured in the '90s. However, it was extremely windy and got dark so quickly that I was unable to obtain a usable shot for this assignment (although I did get some good long-exposure images of car lights on the winding road that leads up to Twin Peaks). If I could have made this photograph work out by getting there earlier in the day, ensuring there was less wind, and bringing along a tripod to ensure stability along with studio lights to make my film photo more visible, this would have created a really great image.