British Photographer Recreates Street Photos After 25 Years, Reuniting Hundreds with Their Past
A British photographer, Chris Porsz, has turned decades-old street photographs into a remarkable project that reunites people with moments from their past, documenting how lives, relationships and communities change over time.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Porsz worked as a hospital porter and later as a paramedic in Peterborough, England. During his days off, he walked through the city with his camera, capturing candid moments involving strangers, including punks with colourful hairstyles, couples kissing at train stations, siblings eating chips and teenagers gathering in abandoned buildings.
He rarely asked for the names or contact details of the people he photographed. Instead, he captured the moment and continued on his way.
However, as life became busier, Porsz raised his children, continued his career and eventually put his camera aside for 25 years.
His photographic journey took a new turn in 2009 when he rediscovered his old negatives and submitted some of the images to the local newspaper, the Peterborough Telegraph.
The photographs generated an overwhelming response, with readers recognising themselves, friends and relatives in the images. The newspaper subsequently gave him a weekly column titled Paramedic Paparazzo.
Inspired by the public reaction, Porsz embarked on an ambitious mission: to track down the people he had photographed decades earlier and recreate the original images in the same locations, allowing viewers to compare their younger selves with the people they had become.
The project, titled Reunions, required years of detective work. Porsz used social media, local newspapers and chance encounters to locate the people featured in his photographs.
One particularly unusual reunion occurred while he was working as a paramedic and responding to a medical emergency. The patient recognised him and recalled that Porsz had photographed him approximately 30 years earlier, when he was a 12-year-old boy posing with a cigarette in his mouth inside a derelict building.
The project eventually produced two books. The first, Reunions, featured 134 recreated photographs, while the second, Reunions 2, added another 168 images.
Through the project, Porsz has reconnected with hundreds of people, some of whom were unaware that their photographs had ever been taken.
The recreated images reveal the passage of time through changing hairstyles, fashion, physical appearances and personal circumstances. While some reunions have been joyful celebrations of shared memories, others have been bittersweet, with relatives standing in for loved ones who have since died.
Beyond nostalgia, Porsz’s work offers a visual record of Peterborough’s changing social landscape, preserving everyday moments that might otherwise have disappeared into history.
His photographs demonstrate how an ordinary encounter captured by a camera can become an extraordinary record of human experience, connecting people with their past and reminding them that every photograph tells a story that continues long after the shutter clicks.
British Photographer Recreates Street Photos After 25 Years, Reuniting Hundreds with Their Past