If you were to go back in time ?

[Bryan]

If time travel were possible and you could go back in time, what would you photograph? 

 

I guess I would want to avoid war zones, or lawless times, and the plague wouldn't be a good thing, so being selective would be necessary.

 

In my case, as an ex steam train buff, I would head for Shap or Beattock on the west coast mainline in the late 1950s, and capture the trains battling the gradients. It would also be good to capture ships being launched on my local rivers, the Wear and Tyne, at around the same time.

[Michael Ventura]

Fun question! A couple of things come to mind.  The building of the Great Pyramids would be one and photographing the amazing artists and inventors of the renaissance, in Italy, while making their creations, paintings, murals etc….

[gvallee]

Being from Versailles, I would hang around the castle and its park photographing le Roi Soleil and his entourage, the decorum, the parties, the Grandes Eaux display, l'Orangerie, people boating on the Grand Canal, the costumes and horse carriages. 

[Harry Harrison]

I'd like to go back to just before my Hasselblad outfit was stolen from my living-room.

[Inchiquin]

I think I would go back to the early years of the 19th century, a time of enormous social change (with endless photographic opportunities but no photography  ), when my ancestors were stinking rich (none of it came to me; I was descended from the one who went bankrupt - twice, and whose son was set to inherit a large Buckinghamshire estate from his grandfather but gave it up for the woman he loved).

 

Alan

Edited September 27, 2022 by Inchiquin

[Ed Rooney]

 

Me? I'm from the past. But to go back further with my little Sony, I'd like to snap the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe sharing the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth in 1621.

 

"Pass the stuffing, Massasoit."

Edited September 27, 2022 by Ed Rooney

[John Morrison]

I'd go back to last Saturday... with the winning lottery numbers in my back pocket...

[Harry Harrison]

Paris, 1968.

[Ed Rooney]

21 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Paris, 1968.

 

I was in Paris in the spring of '68. 

[Michael Ventura]

49 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

I was in Paris in the spring of '68. 

And I was in Paris in the summer of ‘68!

[Ed Rooney]

 

At some point in June, the Sorbonne riots stopped. ??? I had gone back home to Rome for my wife's birthday. Those Paris riots police were a scary bunch. 

 

I like to think of Gen as a girl playing on that giant lawn in Versailles. 🙂

[Harry Harrison]

1 hour ago, Ed Rooney said:

I was in Paris in the spring of '68. 

 

19 minutes ago, Michael Ventura said:

And I was in Paris in the summer of ‘68!

Jealous! So was my wife in fact, but at school on the outskirts so missed out on the action.

[NYCat]

Some parts of Africa are like they have been for what seems like forever... one of the things I like about it. Wild animals!

 

Paulette

[gvallee]

1 hour ago, Michael Ventura said:

And I was in Paris in the summer of ‘68!

 

So was I. Sitting on the Boul' Mich.

[meanderingemu]

From photo angle, would love to go back to the golden age of Train travel early 20th century. 

[Mr Standfast]

Building Gloucester Cathedral or maybe Wells? Maybe watching Fox Talbot in Lacock? Maybe the Wright Brothers at Kittyhawk? Too many to choose!!!! 😀

[geogphotos]

Philippines 2000.

 

Having had both cameras fail in the Trobriand islands I bought a new 35mm Nikon camera at a photographic shop in Manila.

 

Then I spent a few weeks taking pics around the country assuming that being a brand new camera it would work, didn't think of getting some prints done just to check. 

 

I remember scrambling up steep slopes to get better shots etc etc

 

Wrong assumption. Nikon offered a couple of rolls of film as compensation. 

 

 

 

 

[aphperspective]

If that means going back in time and bringing back what you photographed to present day, imagine what would happen if it was Jerusalem at the time of Christ with images of what did or did not happen (depending on your beliefs) I have no axe to grind either way. The vested interests would say it's all been photoshopped and is a con, the historians would say now what do we do.

A

[meanderingemu]

7 minutes ago, aphperspective said:

If that means going back in time and bringing back what you photographed to present day, imagine what would happen if it was Jerusalem at the time of Christ with images of what did or did not happen (depending on your beliefs) I have no axe to grind either way. The vested interests would say it's all been photoshopped and is a con, the historians would say now what do we do.

A

 

colour or black and white? 

[Sultanpepa]

Tracing family history I have a distant relative who died in Africa circa 1875. (G,G,Grandfather) He was a master mariner. I'd go back in the Tardis to photograph him and his ship and find out how he met his demise, which currently I know not. I'd like to photograph the Clyde shipyards while I'm at it, such a big part of ship building history of that era.

[pazmander]

Stone Age people, but not just a still camera. I’d love to know how they communicated with each other, the sound of their language(s), as they went about their lives. So it would have to be video/audio.

[Rebecca Ore]

Deep time, the era of the great cave paintings.   Most of human existence has been thousands of years of living in small groups and making art and music (bone flute dating from the Paleolithic) and jewelry made of mammoth ivory (heaps of finished beads found in France). 

[Jose Decio Molaro]

I would photograph trains with my analogue Olympus Trip 35.

[aphperspective]

45 minutes ago, aphperspective said:

If that means going back in time and bringing back what you photographed to present day, imagine what would happen if it was Jerusalem at the time of Christ with images of what did or did not happen (depending on your beliefs) I have no axe to grind either way. The vested interests would say it's all been photoshopped and is a con, the historians would say now what do we do.

A

Colour preferably with a video to run alongside. 

[John Mitchell]

Being an incurable romantic, I would like to go back to July 24, 1911 to be with Hiram Bingham when he first glimpsed the ruins of Machu Picchu. Hopefully I would have remembered to pack a couple of spare camera batteries. 🤠

 

“Few romances can ever surpass that of the granite citadel on top of the beetling precipices of Machu Picchu, the crown of Inca Land.”

-HB