Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
A snapshot of city life as new photos mix the past with the present
HAVE you ever wondered what the iconic Royal Arch would look like in today’s Dundee cityscape?
Or what if you could still see mothers with their children going in and out of the arcade that was housed at the back of the Caird Hall?
And how would it look if people were still being ferried up Commercial Street on green trams?
One Dundee student has put locals in the picture — by merging images from the city’s past and present as part of a new project.
Naomi McIntosh (pictured) has created the unusual pictures for Afore ’nd Efter, as part of her studies.
The 34-year-old used historical pictures from DC Thomson’s archives and shot her own up-to-date images before editing them together to create the before and after shots. Naomi, who lives in the city centre, today told the Tele: “Some sections of the city remain the same as they did previously whereas in other parts the scenery has changed dramatically. “I went through hundreds of photos and picked a few that I thought would be good to use. “Then I went around taking pictures of all the places as they are now — it was a lot of hard work but it was worth it in the end. “Some of them I couldn’t get exact copies because the road wasn’t there. “I spoke to local people too and got their views on things. The response has been brilliant so far — everyone really loves it.”
Naomi merged new full colour pictures with older black and white snaps from the city’s bygone years.
One of the shots she edited includes two Dundee “wifeys” traipsing up the Hilltown with a pram and a dog.
Another one shows the old Wellgate but with the Hilltown multis dominating the skyline behind it.
She also reveals how Dundee’s retail areas have changed over time — with J D Brown’s sitting next to the Jack and Jones Tex-Mex restaurant.
Lochee is an area that has transformed over time — but Naomi has shown that some things don’t change all that much with her mix-up of store fronts that stood in the High Street decades apart. Naomi, a third-year industrial environmental design student at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, said she had enjoyed merging her passion for photography with her university work.
Naomi’s lecturers awarded her with an A for the project.
She has even been offered the chance to showcase her work at the end of the year.
She said: “It was really fun and it was something completely different.
“I would like to do more of it and maybe put together a book but with university I just don’t have the time.
“Maybe I will do something in the future but for right now I am concentrating on my studies.”
To view Naomi’s full project, people can visit nomimaci.com.