Tuesday 1 June 2010

Buttes-Chaumont in Postcards


Today’s offering is a selection of cartes postales accompanied by recently photographed images taken almost a hundred years later. Little has changed and the template created in the 1860s remains unaltered. Despite the fact that as an exercise in portraying the past and present this is a soft target your photographer was seriously challenged when it came to locating the original viewpoints. The results are the product of various compromises and a reluctance to stand waist deep in the lake or scramble halfway up a sheer cliff face. Lurking in a park with a handful of postcards while young mothers hasten to protect their young offspring is not an undiluted pleasure. Having tried this in a modest way, the professionals who compile entire volumes of past and present contrasts have my undying respect and admiration.





No comments: