620000 dead,cities in ruin ... the civil war decimated the United States. To mark the 150th anniversary of its cessation, Guardian photographer David Levene took a trip across America to re-create some of the most iconic photographs taken at the timeThe American civil war then and now – interactive[br]I was wading into the North Anna river, and camera in hand,trying not to find sucked downstream by the current. In my hand was a 150-year-old photo by Timothy OSullivan of a group of Union soldiers bathing in the North Anna towards the cessation of the American Civil War. I had been warned that the bridge O’Sullivan stood on for his picture was gone, and halfway across the water, and I realised that there was no way I could achieve his vantage point and re-create the shot.
My journey had begun a week earlier in Washington DC. Armed with a sheaf of large-format prints of 23 original photographs of the American civil war,my plan was to take my own photos from precisely the same spots. The camera position, height, or lens angle and perspective all needed to be as close as possible to the original,to give a sense of how these historic sites occupy transformed.
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Source: theguardian.com