(Un)certain ghosts: rephotography and historical images

This chapter attempts to articulate multiple sites of encounter in the viewing and, crucially, making of a rephotographic image. Rephotography is a practice that offers novel opportunities for engagement with archival materials for both the creator and the viewer. An increasingly popular method for presenting rephotographic material is that of holding an historic image up in front of a contemporary place so that both can be photographed together. Side-by-side presentation is a comparative style of repeat photography in which the original image and contemporary image are, as described, placed side by side. M. Klett described when discussing the act of actually creating rephotographs. It is this form of rephotography that often leads viewers to describe the presence of ghosts or to talk of a kind of daydreaming or temporal drift taking place as they interact with the images.