Making the past come alive

I recently discovered the work of the Russian photographer and artist Sergey Larenkov. He takes old photographs from the Second World War and merges them seamlessly with modern pictures of the same spots. Many of his pictures are from the siege of Leningrad, but there are others from all over Europe. It’s hard to walk past the historic buildings over here and not try to imagine the way things used to be, and these pictures add a whole new and somewhat spooky degree of realism to those musings. It really is, as someone else described his work, as if ghosts are walking among us. I think what perhaps amazes me the most is how much overlap there is between then and now. Despite the damage from the war, a lot of the buildings haven’t changed very much. Perhaps that shouldn’t be so surprising, as it’s only been about 65 years since the originals were taken, but the grainy black-and-white film, and the conditions depicted, make it seem like a different universe. I’ve copied a few of my favorite pictures into this post. You can see more of his images by going to his website, http://sergey-larenkov.livejournal.com/ or just googling his name.