Artist Photoshops Scenes From WWII Into Present Day

Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov has taken old World War II photos and photoshopped them over the locations in present day. The scenes from places like Prague, Vienna, and Moscow are incredibly well done and a neat way to appreciate history.

Comments

Very thought-provoking.

[jbarr]

It's a great way to remember past events by envisioning them through today's eye. Very cool.

Very interesting

[MBGMorden]

This is probably the most interesting use of photoshoping I've seen yet. By seeing the conditions of the streets and buildings merged straight into modern times, you really get a sense of how war-torn the world was at the time.

Re:Very interesting

[Charliemopps]

I agree, great idea, but he's not very good at photoshop. Most slashdotters probably have the skills to do better. Although we usually use ours to edit walrus's into various hilarious positions.

Re:Very interesting

[NeutronCowboy]

The difference between a master and an amateur is not the technical skill, but the emotional content of the works. People can study Vermeer's brushstrokes or Ansel Adams' exposure techniques all they want, but it won't make them into their role models.

Same here. What makes this awesome isn't the user's technical competency of an image editing software. It's the fact that the images created are a powerful reminder of how recent WW2 was, and how little separates us now from them then.

Re:Very interesting

[ElectricTurtle]

I don't know who's dumber, the AC or the people modding him up. In the first place, changing the base photos from color to monochrome would completely violate and nullify the artistic integrity of the images. The whole aesthetic point is that the past images are ghosts, and the monochromatic color palette is the indicator of that status. If you reduced everything to that level, the past portions would cease to be 'special' and would exude less, if any, otherworldly incongruence which is contrasted to the structural congruence of the image as setting/composition. Go back to art class.

Secondly, denigrating the technical simplicity of the task is really uncalled for. It doesn't matter that it is technically rather simple to perform, many great works of art are not necessarily difficult in technique, but their value comes from the unique and meaningful perspective of the artist. In this particular case, I have to say that these are some of the most inspired, evocative, and meaningful photo manipulations I have ever seen or am ever likely to see. I care not for how relatively difficult they may or may not have been to produce.

Re:Very interesting

[HTH NE1]

I wouldn't even call this photoshopping. All he did was take a photo at the same angle and then use a mask to show various parts.

Either with lenses with the exact same distortion or correcting for the distortion in the old photo, new photo, or both. And making sure the scale is exactly right for both images.

Even just finding the exact positioning for the camera to produce the proper alignment is a challenge, especially if it has to be taken with the camera in the middle of modern traffic, or if the terrain has changed enough that you can't stand there anymore.

In practice, you'll have to make lots of adjustments in post just to get the images aligned properly even if you do get the modern photo taken from the right position with the right angle.

Re:Very interesting

[rident]

Agreed, the message is more important. Also I'm all for mad digital photo editing skills but the process of recreating the exact angles from the WWII photos isn't exactly quick or easy either. This project either involved lots of measuring or lots of trial and error.

Try in b&w

[sznupi]

Gets really quite eerie when the pictures are displayed in a software capable of switching to greyscale. Not "better" of course, the contrast was surely also the point...but interesting, more blended.

Though it does make the photos more distant, I guess - doesn't help with how, while being a small kid, I thought for some time that the world had to be so sad place in the past, without colors ;) (I apparently missed the existence of color paintings/etc.; and, in retrospect, wasn't very wrong; in some twisted way...)

This is just a small sampling...

[Anonymous Coward]

He's done quite a few: http://sergey-larenkov.livejournal.com/

Re:Locations

[strupet]

Hei!

sergeylarenkov000.jpg (3rd photo) is Hofburg in Vienna, Austria ->http://goo.gl/M7r8
sergeylarenkov11.jpg (11th photo) is Paulanergasse in Vienna ->http://goo.gl/GDJ2 (right next to the TU Wien)

one of the others seems to me like Budapest, Hungary - but i'm not sure.

Greetings from Vienna!

ßeta

Your right

[SmallFurryCreature]

I lived near "A bridge to far" and in some movies, that is very eary. You realize your house is one of the landing fields. But then, I used to often go past a spot in the woods were if you went of the bicycle path a little bit, down, there was a small monument were people were killed by the germans.

If a german asks the way, I point them in the wrong direction. It is how I was raised. I might be silly after so many decades, but it is better then forgetting.