THEN AND NOW
Antibes. Provence: Theo Kuechel. CC BY
OVERVIEW
A combination of today’s ubiquitous digital cameras/mobile devices, an increasing availability of open historical images and easy to use editing software, including online apps and tools, means we have a great opportunity to bring the past and the present together in a photographic or video format. This way of showing information is becoming increasingly popular on social media.
Possible Learning Activities & Outcomes
- Historical research
- Multimedia skills
- Data and research skills
- Geographic knowledge and interpretation creative visualisations
- Photographic composition
IMAGES
Then and Now now images are now relatively common on the web and a sometimes a search results based on "then and now" can provide more stimulating ideas. They all
ThruTheseLines CC BY
VIDEO
https://vimeo.com/81368735
The video above is a remarkable example of Then and Now video that shows the potential. Although the original video in this example is a BFI copy of the work of the 1920s, cinematographer Claude Friese-Greene, there are many historic open videos that would be suitable to be used for a similar video based project.
TOOLS
Re-Photo
Re-Photo is an online platform that encourages you to make and share
The website states that re-photography is the process of taking a photo of a scene that has already been photographed in the past. The challenge for the photographer is to approximate the original location and camera pose as accurately as possible. The site gives some very useful advice for making then and now images.
Juxtapose
If you want to create your own then and now sliding image Juxtapose.JS is free ,easy to use, and works on all devices. All you need to get started are links to some online images you'd like to compare. You can compare two pieces of similar media, including photos, and GIFs. It’s ideal for highlighting then/now stories that explain slow changes over time (growth of a city skyline, regrowth of a forest, etc.) or before/after stories that show the impact of single dramatic events (natural disasters, protests, wars, etc.). Juxtapose is an open source project from KnightLab at North Western University.
Link to interactive example shown
The National Library of Scotland Map Viewer
The NLS map viewer allows different historic maps to be compared to each other, or to present maps from Bing, MapBox, OpenStreetMap or Ordnance Survey maps, in a split-screen viewer.
Example
Contents > Ideas for using Open Media