Forward to the Past

A strange and ultimately puzzling project by Argentinian photographer Irina Werning is making the rounds—not so much "Back to the Future," which is the project's title, as "forward to the past." Irina has very skillfully made modern replicas of vintage snapshots using the original subjects as they appear today, grown, or aged.

Irina Werning, Benn and Dan in 1979 & 2010, London

After having thought about this for several days I still don't quite know what to make of it. Her efforts to duplicate the look of the originals and replicate the props is certainly impressive ("this project made me realize I'm a bit obsessive," she says), and it is certainly a parallel to the "rephotographic" projects of buildings and landscapes that often fascinate me and that we've discussed before. But despite the precise parallels, with people it seems to have a very different meaning, somehow. The now-inappropriate props and situations create a creepy overtone to some of the pictures that changes their meaning all out of proportion to the overtly innocent outline of the project (at least, I assume it's innocent—the subjects seem to be having fun with the idea, and so does the photographer). Things like a photo of two grown men in a bubble bath together have a whole different constellation of implications and associations than two little boys in the same situation, and a picture of an adult woman dressed as a little girl holding a teddy bear is a very different proposition from a little girl, appropriately dressed, and holding an age-appropriate toy.

Irina Werning, Fiona in 1978 & 2010, London

I guess this odd tension between very changed meaning and near-identical replication of the look and feel of the old photographs is what gives the pictures their interest, but at the same time I'm not feeling a richness of deeper meaning there. Except maybe that it's kinda creepy not to act your age.

See what you think.

Mike
(Thanks to numerous readers, including Ben Rosengart and Alessandro Berno)

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Featured Comment by Judith Wallerius: "It mainly makes me think that I've seen something like that before. Zefrank has a continuing project on his home page called "Young Me / Now Me" which is just like this, only with the people themselves recreating the new picture. I think he started it in 2008.

Young Me / Now Me no. 357

"Some of them are surprisingly accurately done, and often funny in a way that doesn't translate if it's a stranger (in this case, literally) calling the shots.

"I don't even think she copied the idea, but in this day and age the probability of hearing of a project someone did half a world away is much bigger. It can actually be quite disheartening if you're looking to find your own creative voice, only to find on every corner that there has already been someone who did that, or something like it, before. And probably better, because you are likely to see an already finished project/product. I suspect it keeps people from trying out things that would've led them on to completely new projects and ideas completely their own, simply because they see no point in even starting on that particular road.

"I would be very interested in seeing where this artist is in two or five years, if an element of this project leads her on to something else."

Mike replies: Funny, I did not remember that at all in this context, even though I've seen it before. Thanks.

Featured Comment by B D Smyth: "[Deja voodoo...] 'Then and Now and Here and There.'

[But you didn't ever refer to this...] 'The Arrow of Time.' 'On June 17th, every year, the family goes through a private ritual: we photograph ourselves to stop, for a fleeting moment, the arrow of time passing by." See Diego, Susy, Nicholas, Matias, and Sebastian from 1976 to 2008.

Mike replies: Actually, I've written about the Arrow of Time project too.

But back to the Young Me / Now Me project. I guess I don't see a lot of similarity in these two projects, aside from a superficial similarity, for one all-important reason: Irina Werning's pictures have authorship, whereas the Young Me / Now Me project doesn't—it's directed, but it's voluntary, with each individual submitting both the pictures and the more recent mimickry of it. With Irina's pictures, presumably she chooses the shot to duplicate, the way she'll do so, even the subjects themselves. With all photography—all art—that changes the game; where there is authorship, there is reason to expect intent, and reason to look for deeper meaning. It's the difference between a real snapshot and an artist working within the snapshot aesthetic, which are two very different things. There's a close resemblance between the products of these two projects, but in terms of their meaning they're quite a ways apart, at least to my reading.

Featured Comment by James: "This is a fascinating topic. To me, there's something deeply disquieting and skin-crawling about the photo of the grown men in the bubble bath, but that probably says more about my own prejudices than anything else. And the point of good 'art' is to challenge you into thinking. On the other hand, the photo of the grown girl with the Teddy Bear didn't even make me pause for thought until I read Mike's text.

"I've got in my house two possibly related themes, although by accident and not design. I spent over 20 years in the military, and in the tradition of the British, the bulk of it was spent with one small Regiment of 580 men. Every year, photographs were taken of the whole Regiment (with a large format camera), and you could buy prints. I did, every year. So what I have is the photographic record of me and about 50 other soldiers and officers who joined with me in 1983, going forward for 22 years until I left. You see the same faces maturing, and with seniority, getting closer to the centre of the photograph. In 1983, I'm a fresh-faced, fit young Lieutenant standing on the far left hand side in the second row, and three rows up and off to the far right is Trooper Paul Fox, nearly 18 and my tank driver. The last photo I have in 2005 shows us both sitting next to each other in the centre: he the Regimental Sergeant Major (AKA 'Father of the Regiment'), me the Regimental second in command. Both of us wear identical medals to commemorate shared campaigns and operational tours over more than 20 years. Meanwhile, in the last photo there are two other young men somewhere on the margins who in 20 years time will be sitting together in the middle.

"The other 'similar' concept I have is a series of photographs taken by me of soldiers under my command in different operational theatres over the last 20 years. It doesn't matter how dissimilar they were physically or in character, under tension and the imminent threat of being killed or wounded, they all look the same. If you want to see that look, pick any war since photography was invented and look at the candid and unposed photographs of individuals (Don McCullin is one of my favourite photographers, particularly his images from Biafra, Vietnam, and Northern Ireland). It's a human trait that the camera amplifies."

Featured Comment by David Wilkinson: "This is really weird and looks like a coincidence to me but this very morning In the U.K.'s weekend Guardian newspaper there is a piece by Katherine Rose where she has asked some U.K. comedians to recreate childhood snapshots.

Jason Byrne by Katherine Rose. Photos courtesy guardian.co.uk.

"Remarkably similar in approach and appearance."

Comments

[Andrew]

"... at the same time I'm not feeling a richness of deeper meaning there. Except maybe that it's kinda creepy not to act your age."

I agree. The photos have an intial gee whiz factor but I don't think I'll be returning to them. The execution exceeds the quality of the concept.

[Nikhil Ramkarran]

I think these photos can be viewed (and interpreted) on a number of levels; a fun project, an interesting temporal juxtaposition, a creepy exercise etc.

I quite liked them. An interesting way to look at the past and the present, but now that Ms. Werning has done it no one else can :)

[David]

I think a few of them are fascinating and dangerous in some sense.

Reminds me a tiny bit of Diane Arbus and Im not sure why, really.

To me, the key is in the editing of the final results..determining which ones are successful in the concepto grande. Having the discipline to make determinations and not show certain of these.

[Max]

Funny, a photographer I actually know personally!! I don't think the concept is innocent, though.
Her father was my economics professor in college, quite an interesting guy!
I even know a couple of the people in the photos. If I had to figure something about it all I'd say it's mainly about innocence lost.

[Jeffrey MacMIllan]

I'd like to suggest that this is one VERY interesting photographer. Thanks for sharing this Mike. Her website is one fascinating project after another....Having never seen her work before I am thrilled. check it out. http://irinawerning.com/
Best,
Jeffrey

[Mark Kinsman]

Coincidentally, I was looking at her project on Wednesday and shared it with my wife. Neither of us found it creepy or distrubing, but amusing to see the changes time brought to the subjects. I would agree with Max,that it speaks more of innocence lost, than anything else. Maybe the reactions are more a reflection of subconcious beliefs instilled from our upbringing?

[Will Frostmill]

Dear Mike,
I have seen this before, and I do think it is very interesting. It is humans being human. I do quibble a bit with the notion that there is something odd about "a picture of an adult woman dressed as a little girl holding a teddy bear". It shows something that is always there, but hidden: we are still the children we once were in addition to being the adults we are now. I think this series could belong to the 'revelatory photograph' genre; the technique is different than the jumping photographs of Philippe Halsman, but the idea is the same: let the subject show themselves by disrupting their usual context.*

I think the portrait of her parents is particularly touching. There, the constancy of setting and expression speak to a constancy of love and affection. (An aspect of romantic photography I rarely see.)

*this is not to imply that all of Halsman's work was about that, but to give him credit for the trick. Also, Nixon jumping. What can beat that?

[aizan]

could have been inspired by borges, the general idea being that repetition is bad.

[Christian]

I have seen the Back to the Future series before, and I really like them. For me the highlight is her attention to detail, which she applies to all aspects of her recreations; the lighting is mimicked well, the clothing and props, the expressions, as well as visual quality of final piece (washed out colors and soft focus are dutifully recreated). It's not that I enjoy her precision in technique as an end to itself, it's that her precision in technique removes the kinds of irregularities that would detract from the immersive experience of viewing the images in the project.

I hadn't seen the then_me/now_me project before. It's also really cool, and for the opposite reason. The lack of precision of technique makes the images engaging in an entirely different sort of way for me. There is personality and individual character to each pair of images that informs me a little bit about the person who submitted them. This project is more voyeuristic for me, with the subjects happily sharing themselves. It feels intimate, which I quite like.

The best part for me is viewing each of these projects back to back.

[Ken Tanaka]

While the idea might not be creatively original, Ms. Werning's actual execution of it is certainly noteworthy. Wow. What extraordinary attention to detail.

I think it's a wonderfully memorable body of work. Aside from the remarkable scene replication, this is something that photography might be uniquely capable of presenting. Get past the techie photography aspect (hard as it may be around here). What haunting human representations of time passage!

Thank you for the tip, Mike, Ben Rosengart, Alessandro Berno, and other fellow TOP-ers.

[Mark]

Taken as they are with the original paired next to it I find them amusing and quite impressed with her attention to detail in recreating each scene.

However, I will agree that if you took the new images away from their old partners then many of them would indeed be creepy when viewed as standalone images.

[Ian Loveday]

"...I guess this odd tension between very changed meaning and near-identical replication of the look and feel of the old photographs is what gives the pictures their interest, but at the same time I'm not feeling a richness of deeper meaning there. Except maybe that it's kinda creepy not to act your age."

Surely one of the universal human desires at times is the wish to revert back to a younger, more innocent, less damaged self, to see the world and your relationships with wonder again through your childish eyes. It's not a question of "acting your age" but rather a question of "feeling your age" which is usually a burden not a blessing. These pictures evoke for me so many tear jerking reflections (I say that with no cynicism intended) on the passage of time and the impossibility of recapturing lost moments of bliss; of course editing is the key but I don't see anything overtly inappropriate here, just a sensitive response to the original images.

[John Camp]

"I'm not feeling a richness of deeper meaning there. Except maybe that it's kinda creepy not to act your age."

+1

[Adam]

Nothing creepy about it at all to me. Really impressed.

[Hans Muus]

Interesting, especially in the context of her website. I find I like her non (or less) directed reportage pictures better. It makes me realise once more that, as I see it, the more a photographer has influence on (or directs) the subject in front of the camera, the more the resulting photo will be about the photographer, and the less it will be about the subject. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but something is lost that way (variation, surprise - or something unexpected, openness to whatever may present itself in whatever way). Something, in short, that to me is one of the things that make photography worthwhile.

[B D Smythe]

[Deja voodoo...] "Then and Now and Here and There": http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2008/04/work-around-the.html

[But you didn't ever refer to this...]
"The Arrow of Time": http://www.zonezero.com/magazine/essays/diegotime/time.html

"On June 17th, every year, the family goes through a private ritual: we photograph ourselves to stop, for a fleeting moment, the arrow of time passing by." See Diego, Susy, Nicholas, Matias, and Sebastian from 1976 to 2008.

[Jim Freeman]

I think we all have one...
http://www.pbase.com/image/132937920.jpg

[Freddy Schiller]

Have a look here: "Un-Possible Retour" by french artist Clarisse d'Arcimoles:

http://www.clarisse-darcimoles.com/index.php?/projects/un-possible-retour/

[Mark Johnson]

Mike,

Not sure if you've seen the book "The Oxford Project" before (http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Project-Stephen-G-Bloom/dp/1599620480/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1299345678&sr=8-1) but it goes along the same theme. rather than trying to recreate the same photo 20 years later, the concept is more focused on the people - what happen to the people 20 years later, and what do they look like now, what did that little cutie with the freckles do in 20 years. It's very nice book, and I find the concept a little meatier, perhaps, than just recreating a photo. If you haven't seen it, it is definitely worth checking out. (BTW, I am trying to remember how I found out about this book - for all I know you may have been the one to point it out.)

[Laura Ryan]

also:
Millee Tibbs
http://www.milleetibbs.com/pm1.html

[Tom]

Creepiest post ever.

[Sean]

I've had pictures of my Wife as a baby & toddler on my desk for weeks. She's in a pram with one of her brothers stood next to her in one shot, sharing a pram with him in another, on bikes with him in another. I was only thinking last week that recreating the photo might be interesting, seeing these today I know that it's hardly a fresh idea, one that I'm not sure was worth doing.

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there"

L. P. Hartley

What's far more interesting about the shots of my Wife with her brother is that there's nothing in any of their photographs together that suggests she'd go on to hate him.

[Ahem]

Someone will always find something offensive or at least inappropriate in everything, but this is taking it to a whole another level - I can't believe there are more people than one finding these photos anything other than endearing, innovative and unique.