In 2001, my wife and I went on a trip to Italy. We visited many places and had a wonderful time. (You can read our travel diary if you wish.) We had such a great time, that we vowed to return to Italy one day. This year, we did. We revisited Rome and Venice, and then continued our trip into France (our first time there).
On that first trip, I took photos using a 35mm film camera. I’ve since scanned the photos to convert them to digital format. A couple of those old photos in particular I really like: a photo of my wife standing in front of the Pantheon in Rome, and another I took in Venice of us sitting together on the bank of the Grand Canal, setting my camera on a tripod and using the timer release to get myself in the photo. That latter photo was taken on black and white film – I took a few rolls of black and white film, as well as colour, on that trip.
Now, as it turned out, we were in Rome on exactly the same day in 2012 as we were when I took that photo of the Pantheon in 2001. So I decided to see if I could recreate it, with my wife in the same position. I had the previous trip’s photos on my iPad, so I had a reference and set up the scene as closely as I could manage – not incredibly close, as it turned out, but good enough. Here are the two photos: the original shot from 2001, and then the shot from exactly 11 years later.
And, for good measure, it happened to be (completely unplanned) that we also ended up in Venice exactly 11 years to the day after that original black and white photo. This time, instead of recreating it with a tripod and timer, I asked an American couple standing near us to take the photo for us. I showed them the original on my iPad, and explained that it was taken exactly 11 years ago on the exact same spot, and if they could please take a photo as close as possible to the same framing. While we sat there with our backs to this couple of strangers, they had our iPad and camera. They spent several minutes lining things up before taking the photo. For some reason, I neglected to ask them to take several shots, in case some didn’t turn out – they ended up taking exactly one shot.
Here they are: the original shot from 2001, and then the shot from exactly 11 years later.
I’ll probably never know who that couple were. But thank you.