Then and now, photo blending in Dordrecht, The Netherlands

[Marcel]

As one american forum member once pointed out to me, I am lucky to live in an area where you can still see the history. He was right. Today, I found a photo taken in my town in May 1940 and decided to try and find that place. Then I took a photograph and I have tried to blend the two together. Great fun and it really proves you are at the right spot. Here is the result. As always, the photo is sightly off, camera is different, my length is probably different from the original photographer and it's difficult to find the exact spot where he stood on the millimeter, but I thought it was a nice effort. I also tried two other locations, but the in the photos I took there, the perspective is more off and the blend is way more difficult. I'll have to try again when it's not so hot.
The old photo:

My own photo:


The result

 

[Wurger]

 

[Marcel]

Okay, one of the others did not come out so bad. I liked this peaceful picture of the war.
This is the great church in Dordrecht and two German soldiers were having some R&R and tried their artistic talents apparently.

They were sitting on a boat jetty which I located closely to the church. I do believe it's a more modern jetty nowadays and they might have placed it in a slightly different spot, so the perspective is again more difficult to match. Also the modern river-freighters obscure the view a bit. But I was actually surprised how well this one came out. I can actually turn on-and-of fthe ww2 layer and the church stays exactly in place. What do you guys think?

 

[Wurger]

PS. initailly I thought you colourized the B&W shot. Well done Pal.

 

[Marcel]

PS. initailly I thought you colourized the B&W shot. Well done Pal.

Thanks. I'll definitely try more. I think this would make a fun project to do. I will have to find some more old photos to work with first.

 

[Marcel]

Okay, this one I really have to try again. I'm pretty sure I have the right location, which was already difficult to determine, but I'm not sure I'm standing at the right spot. I think the photographer stood a bit further from the water, so now I would probably have to stand in the middle of a rather busy road to get the same angle. Also I'm not sure what camera/lens he used, as some perspective on the photo does not make a whole lot of sense if I compare it to the photos I took this morning. The difference in perspective made it difficult for me to pinpoint this location, but I'm pretty sure I've nailed that.
I could not fully match the photos in this case, so I only focused on the facades of the two storage buildings, now converted to really expensive apartments. There you can clearly see they are the same as in the old photo. Interestingly, on the old photo they could look way over the river and see the town of Zwijndrecht and especially it's watertower on the other shore. The view is now blocked by an ugly industrial building unfortunately.The building to the right of the two storage buildings is also still there, but got at some point another level on top of it.

 

[Marcel]

That's it for now. I'll be off finding some more photos that I can use

 

[GrauGeist]

You're doing a great job, Marcel!

Years ago, we had a thread where someone on the internet posted modern sites of WWII photos and I took several and blended them together.
For the life of me, I cannot recall which thread it was.

I did do some "then and now" shots in the Redding area, using vintage photos taken by J. Eastman at the turn of the century and found that on several occasions, the image was really hard to replicate due to a type of lens used on his camera equipment.

 

[Marcel]

I did do some "then and now" shots in the Redding area, using vintage photos taken by J. Eastman at the turn of the century and found that on several occasions, the image was really hard to replicate due to a type of lens used on his camera equipment.

Yeah, that seems to be the case here as well, especially that last one. I think he used a longer focal length compared to my lens and as I said he was probably further away from the water. Do you have any tips to find the right angle when being on location?

 

[GrauGeist]

I had Eastman's photos loaded on my IPad and used that to get as close as possible to the location he shot from.

As far as my equipment goes, I used an 18-55 lens which provided a larger (landscape) image that I could crop if needed. I also had the camera set at f/8, which would have been close to the standard speeda used back in those days.

BTW, I found the thread where the WWII before and after photos had been posted, and some of the ones I dabbled with appear around the third page:

Then and Now

I found another forum where someone posted pics from WWII and searched out the locations and what they look like today. Pretty awesome pics!! Enjoy! .

ww2aircraft.net

 

[Wurger]

 

[rochie]

those are great Marcel

 

[Marcel]

those are great Marcel

Thanks. I'm planning on making more when I have time.

 

[Capt. Vick]

Awesome brother!

 

[Gnomey]

Excellent!

 

[Marcel]

Little heads up, next Saturday I have an appointment with the local war museum to talk about doing a little project together. Them supplying old fotos and me doing the photographing and blending. We might make a little exhibition out of it if all goes well.

 

[rochie]

Little heads up, next Saturday I have an appointment with the local war museum to talk about doing a little project together. Them supplying old fotos and me doing the photographing and blending. We might make a little exhibition out of it if all goes well.

sounds a great idea

 

[Marcel]

sounds a great idea

Yup, looking forward to that. Love to sharpen my skills on this and could be quite educational for me as well.

 

[Snautzer01]

I will be watching this. Have fun!

 

[herman1rg]

I'm with Snautzer01 on this too, watching.