Rephotography

There is nothing quite like the search for The Spot. To find The Spot is to stand in the footsteps of photographers past and make a personal connection to the visual history of a place. If you find The Spot, and record it with a camera, you can join this history and open a window to the past through the indexicallity of the photograph and place. The Spot makes it possible to transcend the present and see the world through History Vision.

During the Summer of 2010, I biked more than 1,000 miles through the heart of Germany, following a now-invisible line through the countryside where the Iron Curtain once divided a continent. I had with me a series of photographs of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall, and for forty days I searched for The Spot as I traveled, rephotographing the former border as accurately as possible.

Sometimes you can’t get to The Spot. Maybe there’s a building covering it, troublesome undergrowth or foliage, or inaccessible vantage points from private facilities. This problem is particularly interesting along the Iron Curtain where the landscape, once dominated by barbed wire and watchtowers, has changed dramatically in the last twenty years as the walls that once haunted the countryside faded and have been lost to the land. This rapid transformation makes experiencing and rephotographing the Iron Curtain all the more striking.