Last weekend I had the privilege of hearing a talk by Chico State Professor and local photographer Bryon Wolfe. Bryon spoke at a meeting of the Chico Heritage Association. The topic of his presentation was Re-Photography which is the taking of photographs in the same location and time of day as photographs that were taken many years in the past. His presentation included a photo show of old images and how he has now rephotographed the same scene sometimes a hundred years later from the same location. The topic and photos were very interesting for at times the images show how almost nothing has changed in the landscape in a hundred years and sometimes buildings have gone and came back as a community has changed over time.
In his presentation Bryon used many examples of the local Chico community and showed how the community had changed in the many years since the first photo of the same location. Also included were images of Yosemite that were taken in the past and new images of the same locations today.
Bryon has worked in the past on projects with Mark Klett who is a professor from Arizona. Bryon and Mark have several books on the topic of Rephotography and have now also started to rephotograph images that the two had photographed twenty five years ago titling these images as a Third View Photography.
For many members of the Chico Heritage Association having Bryon speak of this topic was a real treat with many of them hoping that he will be come back again to show more local images that he or his students have remade of old Chico. Bryon also has a new book that was just recently published titled, Reconstructing the View: The Grand Canyon Photographs of Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe. I have not yet purchased this book but it is available from Amazon. I will try an give a review of the book later.
Best Wishes
Gary
