Dear Photograph Features Photos from Past

Popular blog turned book Dear Photograph helps you take photos from the past and put them in the present. Learn about this creative way to preserve your family memories.

Our children so often bring back memories of our own childhoods. Watching them ride a bike for the first time, have a heartfelt fight with a friend, struggle with math homework—we feel not only their sense of triumph, anguish, and frustration, but ours when we faced similar experiences as kids.

Photographs allow us to travel back in time to relive many of those moments, and to share them with our families now.

We selected these images from the new book Dear Photograph by Taylor Jones (William Morrow, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers; $25.99) to celebrate special parenting moments in honor of Father’s Day.

Jones, 22, was inspired to begin what is now a hugely popular website, DearPhotograph.com, after sifting through old family photos while sitting at his parents’ kitchen table. He came across an image of his brother sitting at that very table, lifted up the photo, and snapped a picture of the picture. He’d stumbled upon a unique way to link past and present—one that thousands of individuals have recreated, taking pictures of pictures in the places where they were originally shot, reliving special moments.

The book, a compilation of more than 140 never-before-seen “Dear Photograph” submissions with dedications that span the emotional spectrum from silly to profound, is a wonderful gift, as well as a prompt for creating your own photographic time-transporting treasures.

dear photograph father daughter pool

Dear Photograph,
You gotta love being daddy’s girl. Even twenty-five years later, it’s who I am!
Leah

dear photograph first day of school

Dear Photograph,
I remember squirming every year when Dad would stop my sister and me to take that corny first-day-of-school picture. I realize now that fathers know best, as I share this photo with my grandchildren.
Tom

dear photograph father son road race

Dear Photograph,
Over thirty-two years, my dad and I have run many races together. It’s been a marathon of love, advice, and friendship, and we still haven’t crossed the finish line.
Love, Benoit

dear photograph father son bubbles

Dear Photograph,
It’s the photo that reminds me of our times together and how you were—and still are—such a great dad. It would be great to grab some bubbles and do it all again.
Love you, Justin