Photographic Time Travel
Have you ever said, "I was born in the wrong era"?
I've said it myself. I don't know if I really mean it, though. True, today's world has a lot of problems, but we tend to romanticize times past. In the "good old days," women were (even more) objectified, women and minorities had (even less) equal rights, and depending on the era, you were (even more) likely to die from an illness that can be treated now with antibiotics or an outpatient procedure.
Yeah, no thanks. People will look at the price of something — gasoline, say — and talk about how much cheaper it used to be. "I can remember when a candy bar was only a quarter." Yeah, me too, but I got paid $3.35 an hour. When our grandparents bought their house for $12,000 and a car for $1,300, their paychecks were about $60 a week. I know. I've seen my mom's old pay stubs from 1960.
Still, romanticizing the past can be a lot of fun. From our modern perspective, we can enjoy the pleasures from those long-ago decades with none of the problems. That's why period dramas are so popular!
Know what else is fun? Taking new photos that look like old ones. Thanks to today's smartphones with terrific built-in cameras, getting whatever effect you want is easy, even if you're a rank amateur like me.
For example:
This photo was taken May 29, 2019 in Dublin, Indiana. What luck to have a carriage pass by a building with the words "carriage shop" painted on it! Totally random and unexpected. Aside from the electric wires and the double lines in the center of the road, it could be the 1910s. Since it's rural Indiana, it could still realistically be the 1940s. I suppose I could photoshop the wires and lines out of the photo if I wanted.
Try it yourself — see who you can fool with your "antique" photo!
I've said it myself. I don't know if I really mean it, though. True, today's world has a lot of problems, but we tend to romanticize times past. In the "good old days," women were (even more) objectified, women and minorities had (even less) equal rights, and depending on the era, you were (even more) likely to die from an illness that can be treated now with antibiotics or an outpatient procedure.
Yeah, no thanks. People will look at the price of something — gasoline, say — and talk about how much cheaper it used to be. "I can remember when a candy bar was only a quarter." Yeah, me too, but I got paid $3.35 an hour. When our grandparents bought their house for $12,000 and a car for $1,300, their paychecks were about $60 a week. I know. I've seen my mom's old pay stubs from 1960.
Still, romanticizing the past can be a lot of fun. From our modern perspective, we can enjoy the pleasures from those long-ago decades with none of the problems. That's why period dramas are so popular!
Know what else is fun? Taking new photos that look like old ones. Thanks to today's smartphones with terrific built-in cameras, getting whatever effect you want is easy, even if you're a rank amateur like me.
For example:
This photo was taken May 29, 2019 in Dublin, Indiana. What luck to have a carriage pass by a building with the words "carriage shop" painted on it! Totally random and unexpected. Aside from the electric wires and the double lines in the center of the road, it could be the 1910s. Since it's rural Indiana, it could still realistically be the 1940s. I suppose I could photoshop the wires and lines out of the photo if I wanted.
Try it yourself — see who you can fool with your "antique" photo!
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