about rephotography

Rephotography is not a new subset under the arc of the photographic arts. Photographers have been rephotographing the work of pioneering 19th and 20th century photographers for at least 30 years. One of the most notable and also one of the first was a project organized by the United States Geological Survey in the 1970s. This was an ambitious undertaking which included rephotographing the images captured by Timothy O’Sullivan and William Henry Jackson, among others, for the US government’s geological and geography survey of the American West during the 1860s and ’70s. (See Second View: The Rephotographic Survey Project,” edited by Mark Klett, published by the University of New Mexico Press.)

Since then, there have been numerous similar projects, including Third View, Second Sights, essentially a re-rephotography project of the Klett et al work; Zane Williams’ Doubletake, a rephotography of Angus McVicar's photographs of Madison, Wisconsin; and Douglas Levere’s New York Changing, rephotography of Berenice Abbott’s Changing New York compositions of the 1930s.

Each rephotography project has its own focus within the framework of an examination of change over time. Fast Forward, while investigating changes, if any, will also investigate how those changes have impacted the communities within those landscapes.