Dear photography

Not so long ago, there were references to the English-language project DearPhotograph.com in Runet. The site touched us, charged with the idea and inspiration. We spent the whole weekend taking photos on this principle with our friends and relatives. What was our disappointment when it turned out that it was almost impossible to send photos to the site. Apparently the author receives them in such a quantity that our dear St. Petersburg pictures are simply lost in the stream and were not missed by the moderator.

It was a pity to throw out pictures, and without having given them the right to be seen. After some thought, we made a clone of the project, focusing it on Russian expanses. We posted the photos taken, asking their owners to write comments for them from one or two sentences. We present you the project " Expensive Photography ".
')
The process of creating such frames was not as simple as it seems at first glance. It would seem that you first need to find a place where your grandmother took a picture of a grandfather swinging on a swing, or you took the first step of your son, or your aunt snapped a nephew running past ... Then you need to combine the photo with the new reality and press the shutter button.

Having started, we faced a number of difficulties: for example, Moscow’s Victory Park was completely different 50 years ago, and the Catherine Square opposite the Akimov Theater was apparently smaller or it didn’t have such a high fence. We did not take a shot at Lomonosov square immediately, because A friend told us that in the picture Area Arts. Having passed it up and down several times, we were convinced that the picture could not be taken there. As a result, I had to look at the list of areas of St. Petersburg (after filtering it out) on Yandex.Panoram. We found the required area by a barely visible glass dome on a building in the distance.

In general, the process itself is an excellent quest and a wonderful excuse to stroll through your city, its old places, taking out old photos from dusty boxes.

For people who have nothing to do with photography in life (which we are), it will be a surprise that it is hard enough to make such pictures with modern mirror technology. To realize this fact, we had to spend the first day of trips around the city. The problem is that the SLR, with its huge matrix and good lens, even at the most clamped diaphragm, flatly refuses to give sharpness in the photo and in the background (the photo is pretty close - at arm's length).

The next day we, already experienced, took the simplest soap box with us (it is important that it was not a zoom soap dish, but the simplest one, like the Sony CyberShot DSC-S780). At the widest angle, it allows you to combine an old photo with a new reality almost perfectly and, most importantly, its small matrix allows you to take a sufficient DOF for sharpness and photography and the background.

In general, of course, it would be nice to take a tripod with you to fix the position of the picture. It would also be a good tripod for the camera itself. There is often not enough light, so it’s good to take a couple of lamps and lightboxes with you. People walk on the streets and stand cars. It would be very nice to remove them as well ... Only here all these metamorphoses over reality are no different from applying an old photo to a new one in Photoshop. All this would be too artificial, unreal, lifeless and not causing interest even from the “photographer”, not to mention the spectators.

At the moment we have taken 14 photos in St. Petersburg and invite you to publish photos from your kinopolis and places where you live. You don’t have to go out - just bring your old photos to the light, choose the ones that make you feel warm and re-shoot them in a new reality. Write good words and publish them on the website " Dear Photography ". Share your memories with others, it's very nice.

Thank.