The one thing I love about the digital age is that there are amazing new twists on old techniques, and Dear Photograph is a fantastic new twist for genealogists and family historians.
The idea is to write a “letter” to your photograph to show the world how things have changed, or stayed the same. Take a picture from your scrapbook and family album and go back to that exact same spot. Hold the photograph up over the spot to superimpose the old image over today’s picture. Then share the story of the photograph. Here is one example post from Dear Photograph by Gaby:
Dear Photograph,
60 years ago, my Grandma Gladys stood with her parents at Forrest Lawn Cemetery. Yesterday, she was laid to rest beside them. As I held this photo, I could still hear her telling her lovely stories all over again. I will always carry her beautiful spirit in my heart forever. I know she has gone back home, I’m just so glad I was loved by her.
Gaby
Dear Photograph is a startup by a young man with a clear vision when it came to nostalgia. Sitting at his kitchen table going through old photo albums he realized he was sitting in the same spot as his brother in the same kitchen many years before. He held up the original image over the spot of today and shared it online, getting an incredible response. Today, Taylor Jones and Dear Photograph has been publicized in the New Yorker, Time Magazine, CBS News, and investors are coming calling.
You can add your own Dear Photograph for free at Dear Photograph and share it through your social media networks, or create your own and publish it on your own family history site and use it with yourself and your family members to help tell their stories.
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