Grandpa’s photos

Australian art director Dave Tomkins found a box of old photos hidden away in a closet at his grandfather’s house. The discovery made him want to know more about where the photos had been taken, and inspired a trip to all the places of his grandfather’s itinerary.

Curious about his grandfather’s experiences, Tomkins quit his job as the creative director for an advertising agency in New York, managed to get his hands on a Voigtländer camera—the same model his grandfather had used—and got on a plane to travel in his grandfather’s footsteps. Journeying to seven countries and seventeen cities, he visited almost all the places where his grandfather had taken the pictures.

He took the same photo at every location that his grandfather had taken. Granted, this was done at a different time with different passers-by and views, but he took them from the same vantage point and kept everything else the same where possible. “Taking pictures with the Voigtländer didn’t turn out to be that easy,” Tomkins says. “I discovered how talented my grandfather was. Sometimes, it was a major production just to take the same shot, with the same lighting and composition. I also had the advantage of being able to first try it with my digital camera, something my grandfather couldn’t do.”