A VISIONARY photographer has brought the past into the present by creating a series of unique time-travelling images of Rugby.
Mark Hickman has painstakingly combined vintage photographs which date back to the beginning of the 20th century with his own modern pictures of the town, taken from the same viewpoint.
The result is a collection of pictures of recognisable and unchanged Rugby landmarks in which faces from the past and present come together.
It started as a labour of love for the former professional photographer, who initially planned to use the images create a 2019 calendar for his friends and family – but he is now thinking about putting the calendars on sale to the public.
Mark Hickman: “I realised that lots of the buildings and background scenery were very similar to what we have today.”The 55-year-old from Hillmorton said he got the idea after seeing the original photographs with which he worked.
Mark said: “I saw these Victorian pictures and I was quite impressed by them. I realised that lots of the buildings and background scenery were very similar to what we have today.
“When I started looking, I realised that there is quite a bit that hasn’t changed – some things such as fashions have changed, but many of the buildings are still the same as they were.
“Whether that’s unique to Rugby I don’t know, but it gave me the idea of going out and taking pictures from exactly the same viewpoint and then combining the two.”
Mark, who now works in IT, found good quality copies of the old photographs at Warwick Library, and decided to use photos of the places he recognised – especially ones with people in them.
“There’s one of the Red Lion in Hillmorton which has got a group of kids lined up,” he said. “It just seemed interesting to compare it to the modern day environment.
“It was a matter of working out where the picture was actually taken from.
“I’d get the original picture printed out to start off with, and then find roughly where the right place was and take my picture from there.
“I also tried to get something of interest in the modern pictures, and had to make sure the lighting was right so that I could match the two together. The rest of it was done in Photoshop.”
Mark said it just seemed like a good idea at the time, not realising until later that the 100 year anniversary since the end of the First World War added extra poignancy to his time-hopping images – with a WWI soldier even appearing in his image of Rugby Railway Station.
But he said he never set out to make a statement.
“It was just to compare the attitudes and the state of the environment to what we have these days,” he said. “It tends to bring the old pictures more to life if you do a comparison to what was and what is now.”
