Blasts from the past: photographing the American civil war in 2015

Via Michel

Dated

I was wading into the North Anna river, camera in hand, trying not to get sucked downstream by the current. In my hand was a 150-year-old photo by Timothy O’Sullivan of a group of Union soldiers bathing in the North Anna towards the end of the American Civil War. I had been warned that the bridge O’Sullivan stood on for his picture was gone, and halfway across the water, I realised that there was no way I could achieve his vantage point and re-create the shot.

My journey had begun a week earlier in Washington DC. Armed with a sheaf of large-format prints of 23 original photographs of the American civil war, my plan was to take my own photos from exactly the same spots. The camera position, height, lens angle and perspective all needed to be as close as possible to the original, to give a sense of how these historic sites have transformed.

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