The Past, Framed by the Present: Part 2

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480sparky

Senior Member
Tonight, I happened to be going by the courthouse again, and the weather was 'just right' for a retake of the shot of my grandfather taken back in the early 1900's. Clouds to the west kept harsh shadows off the town square, yet some nice clouds and blue sky to the east for some modern color.

This time, I spent a little more time adjusting the perspective of both the old and new images to get them to line up better, as well as created two versions..... one with a hard edge and one with a soft edge.

ComboHardPost.jpg


ComboSoftPost.jpg
 
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Scott Murray

Scott Murray

Senior Member
I think the softer version is better and you have done a great job, but I would line up the top right roof a bit more and the footpath if you can (I am fussy) ;)
 
4

480sparky

Senior Member
Scott Murray said:
I think the softer version is better and you have done a great job, but I would line up the top right roof a bit more and the footpath if you can (I am fussy) ;)
Click to expand...

The footpaths have moved over the years... the new ones are further from the courthouse and have even been rerouted. If I tweaked the old image more to line up the roof better, I would have to start cropping out more and more of it. I spent an hour just getting them lined up to this point.... the distortion between the two cameras means perspective correction, warping parts of the images, rotating other parts, etc.
 
Scott Murray

Scott Murray

Senior Member
480sparky said:
The footpaths have moved over the years... the new ones are further from the courthouse. If I tweaked the old image more to line up the roof better, I would have to start cropping out more and more of it. I spent an hour just getting them lined up to this point.... the distortion between the two cameras means perspective correction, warping parts of the images, rotating other parts, etc.
Click to expand...

Ah ok, I am wondering if you could "edit" them out?
Regardless of this its an excellent idea and you have done an excellent job with it.
 
4

480sparky

Senior Member
Scott Murray said:
Ah ok, I am wondering if you could "edit" them out?
Click to expand...

I could, but they're a part of the scene, both old and new. I took a screenshot of Google Satellite, and you can see the outline of the old footpaths clearly (black arrows).

Footpaths.jpg



The blue dot is the camera location, the green dot is where he stood.
 
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oldsalt

Senior Member
That's a really interesting photograph - I'm visiting my dear old mum this week - just might get out the family album and see if there's any "potential" pictures in there...
you've done a good job with the "combination" - congratulations...
cheers
 
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480sparky

Senior Member
Don Kuykendall said:
I have seen many of these shots on the internet and this ranks up there with the best of them


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...

There's a book & website that has a ton of 'em....DearPhotograph.com

However, they prefer you hold the image in front of your camera. I tried that originally, and couldn't get enough DOF to get both in focus. Besides, the wind makes it difficult to line things up. So I opted for combining them in post.
 
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john*thomas

Senior Member
I like the softer edge. I'll even fade the old portion out some to give a ghostly image. I'm not where I can access some I've did right now but you did you a really good job getting that lined up.
 
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