Dear Photograph ~ take a picture of a picture from the past in the present.

Last May, Taylor Jones was sitting with his family in Ontario when his mother pulled out an old photo album. Among the hundreds of shots was one of Jones's younger brother at his third birthday party. "He was sitting in front of his Winnie-the-Pooh birthday cake," Jones recalls. "It was weird – because my brother was there, in the exact spot he was sitting in in the photograph."

Jones grabbed his camera and took a shot of the old photograph lined up to match its original location. He posted it and six others on a blog. Within days, the blog, which he later named Dear Photograph, had gone viral. Today, eight months on, Dear Photograph has had 10m hits, and been named one of Time magazine's 10 best sites. It now gets 20,000 hits a day.

Like the rebirth of the Polaroid instant camera, and the LOMO camera, the success of Dear Photograph has its roots in our nostalgia for pre-digital technology. More importantly the site has shown the power of the image and what wonderful and sometimes tragic memories a photograph can conjure up.

Dear Photograph,
For one brief moment, this murky little duck pond became the most beautiful place on earth.
Greg

Dear Photograph,
I was astounded, but I hadn’t had time to consider what I was seeing.
Mark Yokoyama

Dear Photograph,

Her love was my chemo. I beat cancer.

Eric Richter

Dear Photograph,
Every little girl needs her daddy, funny thing is, I need you more than ever now that I’m a teenager. I’ll be ok while you’re deployed, but it’s still the hardest thing ever to watch you go…you are my hero.
Love Dana

Dear Photograph,
Why can’t I feel all the color that Hallowe’en used to bring me? It’s hard to see the magic through grown up glasses…
Paisley

Dear Photograph,

My grandpa doesn’t recognize me anymore, but he still smiles every time I show him this picture. I hope that deep inside he remembers how much I loved hanging out with him..

Love, Laura

Dear Photograph,
It was 70 years ago when my mother dipped her toes in Lake Cavloc, Switzerland along side her father and sister. Beauty was all around them and so were the echoes of youth. My mother’s view has changed now that she lives in a nursing home. Wouldn’t it have been something if the waters they had danced in had washed the fountain of youth over them… 

Peter

Dear Photograph,

Thank you for everything we had.

@jonathanstampf