San Francisco 1906: Then and Now

Then and Now photos have always been common place in cases of a natural disaster, but photographer Shawn Clover, annoyed by improperly aligned photos decided to embark on his own project. After reading Dennis Smith’s 2005 book San Francisco is Burning Shawn decided to create composite images of modern day San Francisco and archival images of a destroyed city after the earthquake in 1906.

He said of his process, “Everything needs to be precise when layering two photos on top of each other. My original idea was to tear away a piece of the modern photo to expose the 1906 photo, but after playing around a bit, everything seemed more interesting when the two were softly blended together”. Keeping everything from the camera’s height to the suns position in the sky in mind he has done a wonderful job of blending images taken over 100 years apart together to create a beautiful composite that reminds us just how terrible that earthquake really was and what devastation remained in its wake.

Interested in seeing more images? Check out FLAVORWIRE for the full post or Shawn Clover’s website HERE.