Dear Photograph: Marrying Past and Present Photowise (first look)

The value of the old-fashioned photograph is turning, quite literally, into dust. Digital photography and sharing have all but obliterated it. Yet there is at least one photo sharing option — the photo blog DearPhotograph.com — that is continuing to recognize the nostalgia of the paper photograph.

You take one old paper photograph — say it’s of your childhood tree house — and the system will show you, thanks to mapping tech, what that tree or area looks like now.

I do appreciate what Taylor Jones is doing with his site. He’s got a real unique twist on the use of paper photographs, hundreds or thousands of which you probably have lying around in boxes or albums.

Those of us under 35, thanks to the ever-available digital photo albums on Flickr or Picasa, aren’t big on the hard cover photo album. This site, DearPhotograph.com, made me conscious of that and more eager to capture and organize memories going forward — and with the help of my own photographs and this site — even backward in time.

 
Image credit DearPhotograph

Jones now has a book out, which is a collection of submissions to DearPhotograph. Some commentators dismissively say the book is essentially a collection of greeting cards. I disagree.

The book could easily be viewed as a new-age documentary. Check out the Dear Photograph past vs. present photo below. This unique site lets you experience your own or someone else’s memories from two perspectives in time.  It makes me want to get the few albums I do have out of my back closet.

Nice job. I definitely recommend you take a look.