This site will be a home for pairs of images - or even triplets, if we can manage that. Our starting point is an old picture of somewhere, the older the better. Then we will show the surroundings, or even the same view, as it is now. Some topographical views will be impossible to replicate nowadays, others are more timeless. Here are some examples of what we plan to do:
>>>>>>>>>>> "When we get round to it!" <<<<<<<<<
We have not defined "old". Some views change rapidly: for decades folk have been saying to their children "...this was all green fields and countryside when I was young." Really old prints are numerous, many are two hundred years old. The middle of the 1800s was a ripe time for topographical prints, and thousands of views were printed in thousands of copies. Most of these were, and still are, attractive enough to have been carefully preserved. Their attraction does not necessarily lie in their artistic merit, but in their fairly honest and straightforward representation of what things looked like at the time. "Things" includes landscapes, buildings, and people going about their everyday lives, wearing everyday clothes. As such they are of interest to anyone with a curiosity about older times.
We aim to provide sanctuary for these views for the benefit of future generations. A donkey sanctuary provides a happy home for worn out, but nonetheless interesting animals. We try to preseve for posterity the prints we are able to own; we encourage others to do likewise so that they will last for another hundred, or two hundred, years. When one thinks of the difficulty in travelling to distant places; the tedious hours spent engraving a plate; the mess, time, and skill required to print it, then it is only right to take a little trouble in looking after what remains.
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We are placing ourselves between being a charity and a commercial venture. Education and enjoyment are far more important objectives than raising money. Expenses do have to be met, and we will try to do that in as friendly a manner as possible - we have not yet quite worked out how! It will probably be by selling original works on display (on commission), or by selling reprints in the form of giclee prints, digital prints, or greetings cards, postcards printed by litho or laser.
Pictures on this site are at resolutions suitable for the www. They may be downloaded and printed for educational or private use, but not for redistribution or other commercial gain: for that we would be pleased to facilitate arrangements with the copyright holders (a fee may be required).
This site is in its infancy, and Now-and-Then has not yet been made public in any great way: come back sometime later in 2012, or maybe leave it until 2013! Meanwhile - please enjoy what we do have. For further suggestions or enquiries, please send Bernard Harrison an e-mail.