Then and now, photo blending in Dordrecht, The Netherlands

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I need your help guys.
I made a little interactive app for this. I have a prototype running here. Could you guys test it a bit and tell me what you think? You can also see more of my photos than what I posted here.

It's very much a work in progress and this is the first prototype. For now, all text is in Dutch, as that is our first aim as a userbase. I will try to make this bi-lingual later. I guess google translate will help here for you guys for now.

First aim with this is to have something on the "Open monumenten dag", a national day here where monuments are open for public. We are asked to do a little display at one of the monuments. I'm thinking of taking an old laptop with this webapp installed on it so the local people can click around a bit. We also want to publish eventually this at the website "Dordrecht in de oorlog", the website of my colleague in this project.
 
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So we updated the app. It's now both in Dutch and English. Best seen in a desktop/laptop, but should work on your mobile devices as well. The app now has both a map of the area and a gallery, so two ways to explore the photos.
One feature I really want to add is that you can see all three versions of the photo, so historic photo, my modern photo and the blend. That will come soon.

We add new photos twice a week.

The new url is Dordrecht in de oorlog
 
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You have done a great job on that website Marcel.

Being able to see the locations and also the blended pictures is a great idea.
 
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rochie said:
You have done a great job on that website Marcel.

Being able to see the locations and also the blended pictures is a great idea.
Click to expand...
thanks Karl. Next week we'll officially launch the app. It's open monument days then and we'll be at Willemsdorp (in the south of the project map) near the Flakbunker and show people. I've made a special offline version to run on an old laptop, so people can test it.

Btw, apologies for the typos in my earlier post. I'm still not fond of typing on a telephone.
 
new updates on our webpage. We now have published 82 photos. I've made 117 soar this year, so still a few weeks to go to publish all.

Let me show you the latest one, about an obscure part in the history of ww2 in the Netherlands. As one commenter on Facebook said, we almost had our own Vichy.

On July 24, 1940, a new political movement was founded: the Nederlandsche Unie (Dutch Union). The party was willing to cooperate with the occupier but also aimed to undercut the influence of the NSB (National Socialist Movement). Within a few months, 800,000 members had joined. For many of them, membership was primarily a protest against the NSB. Despite numerous concessions to the German occupier, the Union was banned in December 1941 because it was deemed insufficiently loyal to the German cause.

In Dordrecht, the Union was housed in the building at Steegoversloot number 39, directly next to the gate leading to Het Hof. The tension between the NSB and the Dutch Union is evident from the second photo. NSB members chalked the phrase "1 year Union = 1 year betrayal" on the now boarded-up shop, likely after the ban in 1941.

Source of historical photo: Beeldbank Regionaal Archief Dordrecht
 
So the project is almost finished. We are posting our last few photos on Facebook and the website. I am still tweaking the website a bit in the mean time. We also posted some photos of the Dutch NSB (the Dutch NAZI party, which triggered some discussion on facebook ).

This is our latest photo:


 
Just a last heads up.

We now finished the project for now after a 126 photos. It's way more than we anticipated when we started the project. We thought 50 would be a great number. So ready for now, unless we find a batch of really good pictures again.

I had a great experience when I was allowed to visit a very old farm here on the island. It's private property and usually not open for public. The German Fallschirm Jaeger used it as a field hospital in 1940 and I shot and replicated some cool photo's there. Very insightful as many of the pictures were taken at another place than I initially imagined.
Anyway, if you want to see a photos, you can find them on the picture gallery here. Maybe also nice to see the map on that same page, where you can track where each image was taken. For English, click on the little flag at the top-right corner of the screen, or the hamburger menu when you are using your phone. The website is much better on the desktop.
 
Marcel said:
New development: our website and photos have been incorporated into an history teaching program for local primary schools. I'm pretty happy with that as it's exactly why we do these thing.
Click to expand...
People should never forget what happened. There are many people who know nothing about D-Day or even Pearl Harbor. This is an impressive lasting endeavor. Well done sir.
 
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