You Can't Take The Same Picture Twice

You might remember Carl Weese's beautiful platinum-palladium print of the white church, from last September's sale. Just a gorgeous example of fine printmaking. (I guess you'll remember all right if you bought one—this print will be going up on the wall at TOP World HQ, although I haven't had mine framed yet.)

The full title is "United African American Baptist Church, Iron Gate, Virginia, 2002."

Here's the same Church much more recently. I remembered it had been moved once before, but Carl says it hasn't moved since he took the top picture with his 8x10. It's just that time has moved on and things have changed. The earlier picture isn't quite there any more.

Mike
(Thanks to Carl)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Chris Norris: "I'm editing a personal series that touches on this. My family moved around four or five times when I was growing up. Some places I hadn't been to in 15–20 years. I went back to the towns I lived in and photographed the houses (very formal, 4x5 shots) we lived in and places I remembered (Kodachrome and a Leica). It's interesting because these places are imprinted into my brain, and they are very real and concrete. They're still the backdrops for my dreams sometime...but the reality is that the places in my mind only exist there. The physical places are just reminiscent. You can't go home again."

Comments

[Eolake]

It is now more of a Friedlander picture! He liked to shoot things through a mess of trees. And some of those I consider not only some of his best, but some of my favorite photos ever.
(This one wouldn't be in the top ten though, sorry.)

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Clearly that church needs some landscapin'!

Capturing scenes that, sooner or later, become impossible to capture again is one of my delights in photography. In a city like Chicago it ain't hard.

[David Zivic]

Sometimes the first shot is the best shot. Sometimes the first shot is the only shot. Never had the second shot be the best shot. The best camera is the one you have with you might play into this !

[Moose]

There are examples of far more famous views that have changed over time.

Just in Yosemite Valley, there have been big changes. Many images taken from the Wawona Tunnel overlook area, snaps and serious, including some of St Ansel's, can't be reproduced today because of trees growing up into the view. I've seen a big change just in the few decades I've been visiting and photographing there.

I can't even reproduce a film shot I took in 2003. (OK, I admit it, I secretly hope the NPS does a little thinning.)

Mirror Pond, the site of so many shots of Half dome reflected in the still water, is fast becoming Mirror Swamp or Bog, as the pond silts up. The NPS has decided to let nature take her course. Still an interesting place to photograph, just different.

The famous Jeffery Pine is gone.

Things chnge so we won't get bored. \;~)>

[Jesper]

Mine is hanging one the wall a few meters from where I write this.
It is fun to see this new picture, but also makes it clear that our prints are unique in many ways :-)

[John Hagen]

Things get torn down, built up, chopped down, burned down, people move or the light just changes. The time to make a picture is when you see it.

[john Robison]

So get a chainsaw. Really, don't you guys know anything?

[Iwert]

Just change the perspective and taking point to the original one, you might be surprised at how the change exactly looks...

[ctein]

Dear John R,

Channeling ol' Fred P, are we?

pax / Ctein

[Jan Luursema]

Well the two photos weren't taken from the same vantage point, so the comparison doesn't work.
I'm not saying it isn't true (might very well be you have to stand in the brush to take the photo from the same position as the first photo), I also agree with the statement itself, but these photos don't really do a good job illustrating the point.

[Steve Jacob]

This happens all the time in London. In most of my favourite views, you can see a new building on the skyline marking every year that passes.

Worse, a lot of them completely spoil previous line-of-sight views that were rare enough already.

[Carsten W]

It isn't taken from the same place. Move to the ridge in front, to get a higher relative perspective, and move a little to the right, and maybe there is a gap in the trees allowing the same shot from earlier.

[Jim Witkowski]

Did no one notice that the angle of the church is different?

[The new picture wasn't taken from the same spot. I suspect the church now can't be seen from the spot of the earlier photo, but perhaps Carl will chime in and tell us. --Mike]

[Paddy C]

Channeling Yogi Berra I'd say:

"Sometimes you can't take the same picture once."

[Herman]

You can't go home again if the home is no longer there.
"Detroit then and now"
www.efn.org/~hkrieger/detroit.htm

[John Krumm]

A few years ago I took my daughter on a driving vacation through California and I made her endure a trip into the Central Valley to see the old rented farmhouse where I grew up. Everything was long gone except the grapevines and the three sycamores that shaded our front yard. I spent countless summer hours perched in their branches, and it was good to see them standing 40 years later.

[Richard]

Mike, I'm surprised. You're usually more fastidious than this. The main discussion of your post is a good one but these two photos taken clearly from different angles does not illustrate it at all, It's frustrating and even sort of irritating, and makes me really want to know what is the view from the actual original angle and perspective.