Repeat photography

Sometimes abbreviated RP, repeat photography is the art and science of precisely retaking historical photographs in order to document, analyze and understand change. We prioritize well-captured and reliably relocated scenes, offering opportunities to examine successional change in vegetational communities, and in some cases landform evolution.

Three reports from my 2004-&-2005 RP project with naturalist Kathy Hocker can be downloaded from JuneauNature. Two are daily journals, for 2005 aerial and ground-based missions, respectively. The third is a more comprehensive discussion of RP-art-&-science, with many examples from our archives. It includes before-after pairs from year-1 (2004) when we spent much of the project on home grounds of Áak’w & T’aakú Aaní, working out protocols before the more wide-ranging year-2.

‘Construction’ note:

In the original 2014 version of this RP page we embedded an interactive map, hosted by ESRI’s ArcGISonline showing locations of historic photos—both ground-based (red triangles) and aerial obliques (black arrows)—Symbols pointed in direction each photo was taken. Clicking on an arrow opened a pop-up with info about the photo and a thumbnail. Clicking on that thumbnail opened a medium-resolution view.

Initially developed and supported by the Southeast Alaska GIS Library, that map portal was ‘unplugged’ in 2019. One of my goals for JuneauNature is a much expanded assortment of ‘arc-online’ windows, using ESRI’s extraordinary tools for cartography and storytelling. Sorry, for this lapse, and here’s hoping it’s only a brief one, soon to be remedied with even cooler displays.

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