It all started with my own family and family of friends but later I also photographed complete strangers. I tell people about my project and sometimes that leads to new models.

Only a few old photographs with good memories

Prior to the shoot I explain what we’re going to do and what I need. That’s not much: only a few old photographs to choose from with good memories. I always tell them that the shoot is great fun (and it is!) and I show them my previous work.

Stories behind the pictures

The shoot always takes place at their own homes to make them feel comfortable. I try to hear as much as possible about the selected images and their stories. Why and where was the image taken? What do they remember? What’s the story behind the old image. Together we choose 3 to 5 images for the remake and it should be real portraits; no holiday snapshots. It takes about 1 to 2 hours to hear all the stories (which I love!) and it actual shoot takes 30 minutes at the most.

The actual shoot

While making the pictures I only try to pay attention to their mimic, body position, composition and background, to match the old photo as good as possible. I never ask them to get out any attributes or props; they always do that themselves and that’s great to see! During the shoot it’s the challenge to exactly match the position of the models head and body and get them to imitate their looks.

Post-production

At post-production I crop and tilt the image and adjust some controls to match the old image. If it’s a high-contrast image, I’ll turn up the blacks in the new photo. After the first few shoots I converted all the pictures to black and white because I think that way the portraits stand out the best and you don’t get distracted by colors. But later I realized it’s sometimes better to leave old pictures in the original colors and adjust the new photo likewise.