Dear Photograph

Internet Entrepreneurship at its Best: Part 3

This website is more of a blog than anything else but the concept was so fascinating that I had to share it.

Dear Photograph was created by Taylor Jones, 22, who was looking through an old family photo album one day and came across a picture of his little brother on his third birthday. He noticed that it was taken in the very same living room he was in, so he held the photo up so that it matched up exactly to the room and took a picture. He uploaded the new picture onto a blog he created, added a caption starting with ‘Dear Photograph’ and it almost immediately went viral.

Dear Photograph, Thank you for everything we had.

Now with 20,000 visits a day, Dear Photograph is a site where anyone can post their pictures of an old photo in the same setting years later and write beautiful captions about the event or family member pictured. It really capitalizes on our current fascination with nostalgia, not only with family members, old friends, and remembered places, but of photography itself. Polaroids are cool again and the contrast of the old photos against the same (but higher quality) setting is marvelous.

Because of his blog’s sudden popularity, Jones quit his job and is currently wrapping up a book about this concept. Supposedly, he’s also talking to TV and movie executives about turning his idea into film.

His site is simple but elegant and sometimes heart-wrenching and I encourage you all to visit.