A then-and-now photograph answers a simple question: what has happened to this exact spot? When an old picture and a new one are taken from the same position, the eye skips the history lesson and goes straight to the difference. A church rises from rubble, a glacier pulls back up a valley, a tram line becomes a footbridge.
This technique is called rephotography. The twenty pairs below come from re.photos, a free online collection where anyone can browse comparisons or upload their own and line the two frames up. The pairs cover Norway, Germany, France, Poland, Ukraine and the United States, and they span anywhere from fifty to more than 140 years.
They fall into a few clear stories. Some show cities rebuilt after the Second World War. Some show glaciers shrinking. Others show landmarks that barely moved while everything around them changed. For each pair we have added what happened in between, because the gap between the two dates is where the real story lies.
Look for the fixed points first: a mountain ridge, a roofline, the bend of a road. Then look at what moved.
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Norway: Valleys, Glaciers and a Rebuilt Arctic Town
Norway has some of the oldest pairs in the set, many built on the work of nineteenth-century landscape photographers who travelled the country with heavy glass-plate cameras.
Rysstad, Norway, 1888 - 2013
Rysstad is a small village in the Setesdal valley in southern Norway, in what is now Valle municipality. Setesdal was long one of Norway's more isolated farming valleys, known for its traditional costumes, music and log buildings. Because the mountain backdrop is fixed, this pair is a good place to practise reading change: compare the buildings, fields and tree cover against the ridgeline across 125 years.
Seljestadjuvet, Odda, Norway, 1887 - 2004
Seljestadjuvet is a steep gorge near Odda in Hardanger, on the mountain route towards Røldal. In 1887 a horse and cart pick their way along a gravel road above the lake; in the later frame, which is labelled 2004, cars use the same line on smooth asphalt. The rock walls and the waterfall across the water anchor the comparison.
Engabreen Glacier, Norway, 1889 - 2010
Engabreen is an outlet glacier of the Svartisen ice cap in Nordland, just inside the Arctic Circle, and it still reaches lower than any other glacier on the European mainland. The 1889 picture was taken by the Swedish photographer Axel Lindahl, who documented Norway's landscapes in the 1880s. In his frame, the valley floor is little more than ice, meltwater and gravel. By 2010 the ice tongue had pulled far back up the slope, and birch woods, willow scrub, meadows and wetland had moved onto the ground it left behind.
Norway's Water Resources and Energy Directorate has measured the mass balance of Engabreen since 1970, so this is one of the better documented glaciers in Europe.
Hammerfest, Norway, 1889 - 2004
Hammerfest, in Finnmark, has long promoted itself as the world's northernmost town, a claim that depends on how a "town" is defined. Almost nothing in the 1889 frame survives today. A fire in 1890 destroyed a large part of the town, and in 1944 to 1945 retreating German forces forcibly evacuated the population and burned what was left, leaving only a small funeral chapel standing. The 2004 view shows a town rebuilt almost entirely after the war.
Germany: Landmarks Destroyed and Rebuilt
Many German pairs pivot on 1945. Allied bombing and the final battles of the Second World War left city centres in ruins, and the decades after were spent clearing, rebuilding and sometimes deliberately leaving scars visible.
Martin Luther Statue, Dresden, Germany, 1958 - 2014
The bronze statue of Martin Luther in Dresden's Neumarkt was made by the sculptor Adolf von Donndorf in 1885. It survived the bombing of February 1945, and in 1958 it stood in front of a pile of blackened rubble: the remains of the Frauenkirche. In the 2014 frame the statue is in the same spot, but the rebuilt church now rises behind it.
Frauenkirche Dresden, Dresden, Germany, 1897 - 2010
George Bähr's Baroque Frauenkirche was built between 1726 and 1743 and was famous for its great stone dome. After the firestorm of 13 to 14 February 1945, the dome collapsed on the morning of 15 February. East German authorities left the ruin as a memorial against war. Reconstruction began in 1994, using many of the original stones, and the church was reconsecrated on 30 October 2005, which is why the 2010 view looks so close to the 1897 one.
Reichstag, Germany, 1945 - 2012
Berlin's Reichstag building, designed by Paul Wallot and completed in 1894, was gutted by fire in 1933 and badly damaged in the Battle of Berlin in 1945. The famous photograph of a Soviet soldier raising a flag on its roof, by Yevgeny Khaldei, is dated 2 May 1945. After reunification, Norman Foster rebuilt the interior and added the glass dome, and the Bundestag first sat there on 19 April 1999. Foster kept some bullet holes and Soviet graffiti inside as a record of 1945.
Hofbräuhaus München, Germany, 1910 - 2018
The Hofbräuhaus on Munich's Platzl began as the Bavarian royal court brewery, founded in 1589. The building in both frames dates from an 1897 remodelling by Max Littmann, after brewing moved out to the suburbs. Allied bombing destroyed everything except the historic ground-floor hall, and the restoration was completed in 1958, the year Munich marked its 800th anniversary.
The Karlstor, Munich, Germany, 1946 - 2017
The Karlstor is one of Munich's old town gates, first recorded in 1302 as the Neuhauser Tor. It was renamed in 1791 after Elector Charles Theodore and lost its main tower in a gunpowder explosion in 1857. In the 1946 frame people walk past damaged walls in the aftermath of war. Today the gate opens onto the busy Karlsplatz, known locally as Stachus, and the Neuhauser Strasse pedestrian zone.
Osnabrück, Germany, 1904 - 2016
This pair is different from the rest: it compares an early aerial view of Osnabrück in Lower Saxony with a modern satellite-style image. The old road lines are still traceable, but open fields have filled with housing and green space. Osnabrück, where part of the Peace of Westphalia was negotiated in 1648, was heavily bombed in the Second World War and grew well beyond its prewar size afterwards.
Osnabrück Central Railway Station, Germany, 1965 - 2015
Osnabrück Hauptbahnhof opened in 1895 and is a so-called tower station: two main lines cross here at right angles on two different levels. The building itself changed little between the frames. What changed is how people arrive: the forecourt full of parked cars in 1965 is packed with hundreds of bicycles in 2015.
France: Paris Landmarks and an Island Made Whole Again
Quai Des Nations, Paris, France, 1900 - 2018
For the 1900 Exposition Universelle, the left bank of the Seine near the Quai d'Orsay was lined with ornate national pavilions, the so-called Street of Nations. The fair ran from April to November 1900 and drew tens of millions of visitors. The pavilions were temporary plaster structures and were pulled down afterwards. The 2018 frame shows the quiet riverbank that replaced them; the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais and the Pont Alexandre III are among the fair's buildings still standing nearby.
Moulin Rouge, Paris, France, 1900 - 2016
The Moulin Rouge opened on 6 October 1889 on the Boulevard de Clichy, founded by Joseph Oller and Charles Zidler. The original building burned down in February 1915 and the cabaret reopened in its rebuilt form in the 1920s, so the red windmill of 2016 is a later version of the one in the 1900 view. The sails themselves fell into the street in April 2024 and were restored that July.
Tour Eiffel, Paris, France, 1910 - 2018
The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair and was meant to be temporary; its later use as a radio antenna helped save it. Look through the arch: in 1910 it frames the Moorish-style Palais du Trocadéro, built for the 1878 fair. That building was replaced by the Palais de Chaillot for the 1937 exposition, which is what stands there in 2018.
Horse Cart And Steam Locomotive, Mont Saint-Michel, France, 1908 - 2016
A raised causeway linked Mont Saint-Michel to the mainland from 1879, and in the early twentieth century a steam tramway carried visitors along it, as the 1908 picture shows. The causeway caused silt to build up around the island. A large restoration project removed it, moved the car park inland and opened a light bridge designed by Dietmar Feichtinger in July 2014, letting the tide flow around the mount again.
Poland: Rebuilding After the War
Corner Of Ratajczaka And Św. Marcin Streets, Poznań, Poland, 1945 - 2018
Poznań was the scene of a month-long battle in January and February 1945, when Soviet forces besieged the German-held city. About 55 percent of the city was severely damaged, and parts of the historic centre suffered even more. At this corner, a bomb-gutted apartment block from 1945 reappears in 2018 fully restored, with its facade, balconies and corner turret back in place.
Marcin Street, Poznań, Poland, 1945 - 2017
Święty Marcin is one of Poznań's main thoroughfares. In the 1945 frame, residents climb over heaps of rubble between shattered buildings. The 2017 view shows a wide, rebuilt street with modern office blocks, bollards and greenery, where some prewar facades survive beside postwar designs.
Nowomiejska Street, Łódź, Poland, 1874 - 2016
Łódź grew from a small town into the "Polish Manchester" during the nineteenth-century textile boom, reaching more than half a million people by 1913. Nowomiejska Street runs north from the octagonal Plac Wolności, laid out in the 1820s as the new town centre. The 1874 street is a muddy, unpaved track; by 2016 it has tram tracks and parked cars, while several of the old building lines remain.
Ukraine and the United States: Abandonment and Ice Loss
Pripyat, Ukraine, 1986 - 2016
Pripyat was founded in 1970 to house workers from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and it had about 49,000 residents when reactor 4 exploded on 26 April 1986. The city was evacuated the next day and has been empty ever since. In thirty years, trees and shrubs have pushed through pavements and courtyards, which is what makes this pair so striking.
Chaney Glacier, USA, 1911 - 2005
Chaney Glacier lies in Glacier National Park, Montana. The 1911 photograph was taken by M. R. Campbell, and the 2005 repeat by Karen Milone, both for the US Geological Survey, which has re-shot historic glacier views in the park since 1997 to measure ice loss. The difference in ice cover over 94 years is one of the clearest visual records of glacier retreat in North America.
How to Read, and Make, a Then-and-Now Photo
A paired view is persuasive, but it can also mislead. A photo taken in late summer will show less snow than one taken in spring, a longer lens can make mountains look closer, and a slightly different standing spot can hide or reveal whole buildings. Good rephotography notes the date, the season and, where possible, the exact viewpoint.
If you want to try it yourself, start with an old postcard or family photo of a place you can visit. Find two fixed points in the picture, such as a church tower and a hilltop, and move until they line up the same way in your viewfinder. Match the height of the camera too: many old photographs were taken from a tripod at chest height. Platforms like re.photos and the USGS glacier archive show how useful these pairs become when they are shared with dates and locations.
The best pairs remind us that places are not fixed. Cities burn and are rebuilt, glaciers retreat, and some landmarks survive simply because people decided they were worth keeping.
Sources: Photo pairs via re.photos; USGS Repeat Photography Project; Wikipedia: Frauenkirche, Dresden, Reichstag building, Hofbräuhaus am Platzl, Karlstor, Osnabrück, Osnabrück Hauptbahnhof, Exposition Universelle (1900), Moulin Rouge, Mont-Saint-Michel, Battle of Poznań (1945), Łódź, Pripyat, Engabreen, Hammerfest.
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