Stephen F. Austin State University

NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS – Along with the townspeople scurrying to complete their errands and the tourists trolling the brick streets for antiques, some photography students from Stephen F. Austin State University are in downtown Nacogdoches this summer seeking windows into history.

They are guided by a stack of grainy, black and white photographs, some more than a century old, depicting daily life in the oldest town in Texas, which appears to have been buzzing with activity even in its horse-and-wagon days.

The photography students are using those old photos, along with historic maps of the downtown area, to painstakingly recreate the shots in modern-day downtown Nacogdoches. Their new images, created with digital cameras and state-of-the-art computer software, show just how much things have changed over the decades – and just how much they haven’t.

“It’s a really weird feeling to be standing in that same place and look down at the old photo and then look up at the current view and see what is different and what is the same, said Christopher Talbot, assistant professor of art. “In many cases, there are telephone poles standing in exactly the same places.”

The 20 participating students are enrolled in Talbot’s Advanced Digital Media and Advanced Photographic Processes classes for the Summer I semester. The students’ work will be preserved for posterity in a limited number of self-published, hardback books to be created when the project is concluded. The students also are blogging about their daily progress and posting some of their photos at www.nacnowandthen.blogspot.com.

“It’s really cool to be part of a project that will have a lasting impact beyond the class itself,” said Kathryn Gray, a senior English major from Bay City. “As a student, it is also great to have something like this to include in your portfolio.”

For each of the 25 historic photo shoots being recreated, the class is going to great lengths to ensure the vantage point from which the photo is taken is as close to the original as possible. In many cases, that means standing in the middle of a downtown street, where traffic now is considerably heavier than it was in the 1800s.

For other photographs, the students have staked out rooftops or borrowed office space in downtown buildings to get just the right photographic perspective.

“We’ve had to talk to a lot of different property owners to gain the access we needed, and so far everyone downtown has been very cooperative,” Talbot said.

To recreate a photo taken during a fair on Main Street in Nacogdoches in 1910, the students headed downtown June 14 for the annual Texas Blueberry Festival. Their photo, shot from a rooftop at the corner of Main and Church streets, is remarkably similar to the original. Both depict fairgoers meandering up and down the crowded street on a sunny day.

The students also are experimenting with “blending” old photographs with new. The resulting image is like visual time warp, a single photo taken in two different centuries.

The nature of the project has required Talbot’s students to learn more about Nacogdoches’ colorful history, something senior Paul Holroyd didn’t really expect when he signed up for photography class.

“Before now, I would just sort of pass through downtown and not think much about it,” said Holroyd, a photography major from Hewitt. “But this project has given me a new appreciation for the community’s history.”

The class’ images will be exhibited along with the historic originals at the Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches in July. For more information about the exhibit, contact the SFA Arts Information Office at (936) 468-6407.