Most professional photographers are probably a lot like me. When working on a project, I often think about what comes next. I never have been able to finish something before knowing what I’d be doing afterward. In 2003, Linda Doyle with Westcliffe Publishers called to talk about future projects. At the time, I was working on North Carolina’s Best Wildflower Hikes for Westcliffe and had two more books planned with other publishers. But, always thinking down the road, I eagerly talked with Linda. We bounced around several ideas before she pitched North Carolina Then & Now. I enjoy looking at old photographs and photographing historic architecture and cultural sites. But I’m a nature photographer. The idea of producing a then and now book didn’t strike me at first as something I’d particularly enjoy.

The more I considered it—and the more Linda pressed—the more I thought that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. I’d have the opportunity to visit some new places and maybe learn a little bit about North Carolina’s history. And more persuading perhaps, I thought, how hard could it be? I’d just pick out some old photos, and go out and reshoot them. I could knock this book out in short order and move on to the next project.

You know where this is going, right?

I am not sure which assumption was the most inaccurate: that I would learn a little bit, or that this would be easy. The North Carolina Then & Now project has educated and excited me like nothing I’ve ever done. I’ve learned more about North Carolina’s history in the past 18 months than in all the years I spent in school. The project has also frustrated the heck out of me and given me a good kick in the butt from time to time.

The first task was finding the photographs. Some of the Then and Now books published by Westcliffe for other states utilize the photographs of a single photographer. For instance, John Fielder’s Colorado: 1870-2000 features the renowned William Henry Jackson, and Steve Terrill’s book on Oregon uses the photography of Benjamin Gifford. But no one photographer had covered North Carolina well enough. I would have to use the work of several people. In fact, this book features dozens of photographers.

I started my photographical research at Pack Memorial Library in Asheville. There, I discovered not only a mother lode of western North Carolina historical photographs, but also got my first experience of something unexpected: the friendly, knowledgeable, and extremely helpful people who work in the libraries and historical organizations across the state. Over the next six months, I visited dozens of libraries and history museums, spent countless hours browsing the Internet, and leafed through stacks of books. Overall, I looked at some 50,000 historical photographs.

While researching the images, I looked especially for scenes that would show either a lot of change or none at all. I tried to steer away from shots of single buildings, opting instead for wide-angle street scenes. Most of all, the before and after image pairs needed to tell a story beyond "this is the way it looks today." But that story needed to also be about the landscape, not a particular event. I literally looked at thousands of images depicting parades, construction, commemorative events, sporting activities, and, especially, catastrophes such as floods, fires, and hurricanes. But none of those photos seemed appropriate for a rephotography book. Those types of scenes change from one minute to the next. I wanted to illustrate the changing landscape of North Carolina over time. (Admittedly, I broke this rule for a few of the photos.)

At each library, I made photocopies of likely candidates. I ended up with about 1,500 copies that I later culled in half. With these 750 or so working copies, I set out across North Carolina to take pictures. Once the fieldwork began, it quickly became obvious that I had seriously underestimated the work involved. To make a suitable rephotograph required working out a number of factors. First, the historical photo had to permit copying. Often, I had to discard a wonderful photograph simply because it was impossible to duplicate the vantage point. In towns, the problem might be a new building on the spot where the historical photographer stood. With nature scenes, all too often the problem was that trees blocked the view. (I knew that logging had been widespread in North Carolina in the first part of the twentieth century, but I wasn’t prepared to learn just how extensive it was and to see it in photographs.)

If the photograph permitted duplication, the next hurdle to overcome was lighting conditions. Was the sun shining into the camera, creating too much flare? Was the sun so low that it created shadows over half the frame? Technical rephotography involves recreating the lighting conditions closely. When practical, I shot the modern photos in similar lighting. But often I had to take what nature provided. Strict rephotographers also match the season of the historical photos. I did this whenever I could, but as the deadline neared, I ended up shooting some of the photos in a different season.

Lighting and season weren’t the only issues that forced return trips to get the shot. Duplicating many of the historical photos required shooting from the middle of a busy street or from the roof of a building. For the photos I needed to shoot from buildings, I spent a great deal of time arranging access. For the road work, I tried to plan shoots for Sundays, when there would be less traffic. I didn’t always have that option, however. On a number of occasions, I found myself in some precarious situations. (There’s nothing quite like standing in the middle of a busy road with tractor-trailer trucks trying to get around you!) To add some measure of safety—and to help alleviate my wife’s anxiety—I wore a blaze-orange hunter’s cap and a neon-yellow safety vest for all these shoots. In some situations, I also set out orange traffic cones.

The biggest hurdle to overcome was in my mind. I wanted all the modern photos to be beautiful—to take a bad photograph on purpose is alien to me. But since I was duplicating another photographer and didn’t have an unlimited amount of time, I didn’t have the option of choosing the composition and shooting in the best lighting conditions. The historical photographer may have composed beautifully for his or her time, but the modern view often presented an inferior composition. I had to keep reminding myself throughout the project that I was not supposed to be creating beautiful photographs. I was simply duplicating the viewpoint of a historical photo. If the lighting or composition were poor, it was no big deal.

Once the stars had aligned and I was finally able to take a picture, the next factor was determining the precise vantage point. (Focal length wasn’t an issue. Using a digital SLR camera, I shot everything at a wider angle of view than the historical photo and cropped it later in the computer.) This was easy with scenes that have a lot of detail in both the foreground and background. I could clearly see the perspective change as I moved around. Street scenes in which at least two buildings are the same in both the historical and modern view were also relatively easy. I could draw reference lines on the historical photo to use for alignment. The best ones had chimneys or roof overhangs that I could use to line up with another building. But most shots required a lot of guessing. If I guessed incorrectly—which was often—I had to return and try again. Some shots took four or five tries.

The technical rephotographer is not satisfied until all the factors come together and the modern photo precisely duplicates the historical image. Sometimes, repeat photographers are working on a science-related project, where the rephotograph is part of the research. Moving the camera location to avoid an object blocking the view or shooting even when you’re not certain of the vantage point is out of the question. Being a perfectionist (my wife uses a different word to describe me), I applaud this degree of accuracy. But I realized early on that it would be impossible to achieve this on a project such as North Carolina Then & Now. (The only way to do it would be to choose photos specifically because I could precisely duplicate them. And then I’d end up with a book full of uninteresting, uninformative, and probably ugly photos.)

For this before-and-after project, the goal was to do everything possible to duplicate the historical photos exactly, but to defer to practicality. If the shot required setting up my tripod in the middle of a road, then that’s what I did. If there happened to be a tree blocking half the view, then there will be a tree blocking half the view in the modern shot. I didn’t move the camera location to make the work easier or to create a more aesthetically pleasing image. But practicality came into play with some of the shots. For instance, had I shot the modern photo of the Mountain Park Hotel site (page 8) from the precise vantage point, you’d see nothing but a dense stand of trees and the image pair would lose all impact. Common sense also ruled in situations where the shot didn’t provide enough evidence to pinpoint the vantage point. That was often the case with distant landscape images. I could be off just a few yards on some of these shots and not even recognize it. The uncertainty of precise framing did not cause me to leave these distant views out. And then there are the shots that pestered me to the end. I’d shoot and reshoot and still not figure it out. As far as I’m concerned, no human being on the planet could get these shots precisely lined up. If they do, I don’t want to know about it!

Some photos presented special challenges. The most maddening ones were the aerials. Let me tell you, it’s hard enough trying to compose a rephotograph with the camera sitting on a tripod. From a small airplane, it’s just about impossible. Shooting from a helicopter would have been the ideal solution, but with rates in the $500 to $750 per hour range, that was out of the question. Of course, I wasn’t expecting to get the aerial shots perfect, but I wanted them to be at least close enough to include the same coverage of the historical view. Somehow, I managed to achieved that goal, but not without driving a few of the pilots crazy. Some of the shots required shooting from a point higher than eye-level. For these, I used my "ladderpod." I modified a ten-foot-high stepladder for use a camera support by making adjustable leg extensions and a device for attaching a ballhead. It works great, but it’s not something I’d want to lug very far. Other special challenges involved misinformation. Often, I would find historical photos printed in reverse, with incorrect dates, or those with incorrect location information.

One particular photo haunted me for over a year. It was a terrific mountain scene, shot from a high vantage point and overlooking a fog-filled valley. It was widely published in the late 1800s, always with a caption indicating the location as Buncombe County or near Mount Mitchell. I know this area well, but try as I might, I couldn’t find the location. Long after I had given up hope and had stuffed the photo in the cull box, I inadvertently ran across it while browsing the Internet. This particular site, unlike many others where I had seen the photo, indicated that the image had been shot in Caesar’s Head State Park, a location I was not familiar with. Sure enough, when I searched the Internet for photos from the park, I was able to confirm the historical photo’s identity as being from the park. Mystery solved. Trouble is, Caesars Head State Park is in South Carolina.

Another situation illustrates the many problems I ran across with misinformation. I discovered a nice photo of an old set of locks on the historic Dismal Swamp Canal in the extreme northeastern portion of the state. It was the perfect type of image for the book, but I didn’t know its location. Since the canal has been altered considerably over the years, it would be difficult to find by sight. So I talked with a lock keeper at one of the modern locks. He pointed out the location from where he thought the photo had been shot—a section along the old canal route that is now filled in and overgrown in trees. Although I felt uncomfortable with the vantage point, I took the picture. Then, after studying some more, I determined that I was looking in the wrong direction. I had shot looking north, while the correct direction was south. So I reshot it, but the lighting was poor in that direction.

I returned a few months later to reshoot the scene in better lighting. While I was there, I studied the situation some more. I became increasingly uncomfortable with the location, even though the lock keeper was confident that the locks in the photo had been at this site. By this time I knew better than to proceed with any information that I wasn’t sure of, so I tracked down a local historian (I had learned that every town in the state has a resident history buff) and spent the morning talking with him. He had a wealth of information and boxes full of old photographs. One image was of the same locks in my photo, but taken later—after the locks had been improved. The scene with newer locks was completely different from the photo I had, but there was no reason to doubt what the person said. He explained where the locks had been located (several miles from where the lock keeper suggested I shoot) and I went to investigate. Since the date of the historical photo, the Dismal Swamp Canal has been widened and deepened and the locks in my photo were removed long ago. But if I could find where they had been, I could make a great rephotograph from the middle of the canal. To my delight, I found the site and planned to return later with my kayak.

Before leaving the region, I stopped at a visitor center and bought a book about Great Dismal Swamp and the canal. Weeks later, while thumbing through the book in my office, I noticed the historical photo I was planning to shoot. According to the book, the locks in the photo were located on a side canal called Feeder Ditch, which happens to be in Virginia. I’ve paddled Feeder Ditch many times and when I read the caption, it all came together. Yes, the book had it right. I was about to make a rephotograph that not only was in the wrong location, but in the wrong state!

An issue with rephotography that I’ve heard from other photographers is the aversion to copying someone else’s work. By definition, rephotography requires duplicating the work of another person. Some people have difficulty with this, believing that everyone should seek their own vision. I agree with that view when you’re talking about traditional photography, but rephotography is different. The modern photographs in this book will never be displayed without the context of the historical images. So, in this case, if someone accuses me of copying another photographer’s work, I’ll take it as a compliment.

While working on this project I often imagined myself in the historical photographer’s shoes. I thought about what he or she went through to get the shot a century earlier. I pondered why they chose one composition over another. Some situations puzzled me, as with the Rufus Morgan’s shot of Linville Falls on page 6. Why didn’t Morgan move a mere 20 feet so he could shoot without those tree branches cluttering the scene? Some situations impressed me. George Masa and Herbert Pelton, in particular, took photographs that are challenging to duplicate even today. Sometimes I became emotional when I knew I had nailed the vantage point. There I was, in the exact location of a photographer who had taken the same shot a hundred years earlier. On a few occasions, particularly with landscape views from mountain overlooks, I could even guess where the photographers had placed their feet. I ended this project with a great deal of respect and admiration for these pioneer shutterbugs.

It occurred to me that in a hundred years another photographer might see this book in a library and decide to rephotograph these images all over again. Someone even suggested that I include GPS coordinates to make their job easier. The thought of some future photographer rephotographing this body of work pleases me, but I won’t take their fun away by making the job easier. I traveled all across the state, making new discoveries, seeing new sights, meeting gracious and knowledgeable people, and above all, learning a tremendous amount about North Carolina’s history. Sleuthing the locations of the historical photos made me feel like a detective. I searched for and analyzed clues to arrive at a determination. When it all came together, I had an incredible feeling of achievement and satisfaction. And it was fun! If someone had given me GPS coordinates for the photos, it would have taken half the excitement away. (I have to admit, however, that I gladly would have accepted the coordinates for a few of the difficult ones.)

Photography, like writing and speaking, has the capacity to make us think about the way we live our lives. We influence people by what we choose to say, write, or photograph. Readers of my previous books know where I stand. I will be the first to support historic preservation. Frankly, the frequency in which we destroy old structures in the interest of "progress" appalls me. And don’t even get me started with how I feel about the environment. But for this book, I want the photographs to speak for themselves. Clearly, in looking through the image pairs there is fuel for fires in many camps. Someone against clear-cut logging would have a hard time arguing against the enormous progress made since the early part of the twentieth century. And several of the photos in this book demonstrate the positive side of historic and environmental preservation. At the same time, an urban preservationist might adopt this book as their poster child.

The photographs presented here may elicit anger, sadness, shock, joy, satisfaction, reminiscence, or any number of other emotions. My agenda is simply to elicit some kind of emotion. For good or for bad, this is North Carolina—then and now.