Oh so you’ve got old photos at recognizable places, yes? So you’d like to reawaken the ghost in the machine? That’s scary. Let’s do it! First, get an old photo you can place. Next, get a camera. Then let’s go to the location you know connects to the photo. OK! Now, stand in just the right place and angle, hold that photo up somehow, and take a photo. Foosh! Look what you’ve done! This is friggin magical!

I think it’s really creepy too. It gives me a strange vibe, like I’ve never seen anything like this before, other than in horror movies with mirrors and such reflecting things you can’t otherwise see. I believe photographs have strange powers too. But don’t worry about that, you aren’t afraid of satan are you? Naw!

Let’s look through a whole gallery of these sorts of photos for some amazing inspiration to see what we’re gonna do!

The following contributions are from: Tinflower, KeithW, UWGB Admissions, Gordon Calder, alfieyork, Haunted Snowfort, hairyegg, AldenC, hawkGaar, Hombertho, AmyCox000, Jennifer Glass, Cory Templeton, Fuxe73, 4Durt, BenD, XsuperflyX, Tom5, and probably the most bad mofo of them all, JasonePowell.

Powell isn’t necessarily the guy who came up with the idea to put an old photo in front of a new scene to take a picture, but he’s REALLY GOOD AT IT, and he does have a gigantic pool of these sorts of photos floating around on flickr. This pool grows everyday, and it’s awesome and amazing. When you take some of these photos, be sure to contribute to Powell’s group for the most massive thumbs ups and such.

When you take photos like this, you might want to start with some stock photos if you havn’t already got a supply. A good resource for these sorts of photos to put in front of photos, is Powell’s source list. This is where to start if you havn’t been collecting what we in the industry call “instant relatives” from estate sales and rummage sales for 23p apiece.

So! Let’s get to it! Glance your way through these lovely examples below, then get yourself on the road to bringing the past back alive! Don’t wake up any terrifying zombie ghosts though, or I’ll tell em we didn’t send ya!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies celebration category.