Paris photomontages blend old in with new

A Parisian artist fascinated by the timeless aspect of the capital decided to melt together the city’s past and present.

Julien Knez, an art director, hit the streets with his camera in his favourite corners of Paris or borrowed the pictures from Google streetview to capture how the city looks today. Then he melded his shots with vintage postcards or pictures of the City of Light from 1900 or just before.

The results are fascinating. In one montage a pack of modern day Parisians stand at a street corner, with the Notre Dame Cathedral in the background, as a circa-1900 crowd rushes forward on the same stretch of road.

It’s incredible how little and how much some places have changed. Many stone buildings and streets look a lot as they did a century ago, but then again some are gone altogether. Knez seems to be aware of this collision with the past.

“It’s interesting to dive into this era where there were no cars, in which only horse-drawn carriages traveled the cobblestones of the capital,” Knez wrote on his blog where he posted the images. “From Opera to the Moulin Rouge and passing through Notre Dame, here is my series of photos.”

Photomontages blends Paris circa 1900 with modern City of Light