Rephotographic expedition to the Faroe Islands

Hiking on the Faroes guided by the old cairns. Photographed on the old mountain path from Haldórsvik to Saksun. Visible are the two cairns marking they way and to the right the remains of an Ból, an U-shaped sheepfold without a roof. In the background to the left the Slættaratindur, the highest peak of the Faroes.

In the summer of 2021 we made a rephotographic expedition to the Faroe Island and rephotographed more than 200 historic images of the islands.

Our QGis map of the Faroes. The historical images are marked as arrows pointing from the camera location into the direction of view.

Beforehand the historic images were collected and georeferenced, i.e. finding the correct camera location and direction of view and adding the photograph to the digital map. Aerial- and satellite images as well as Streetview were a great help in this process, maybe also Sheepview.

The Gongin, the oldest street in Tórshavn. The timespan between historic image an rephotograph is roughly 100 years.

After all historic photographs were georeferenced the journey could begin. On the Faroes we moved from island to island and searched for the historic camera positions.

The ruin of Kirkjubømúrurin / St. Magnus Cathedra in Kirkjubøur, the largest medieval building of the Faroes. In the rephotograph you can see workers of the Tjóðsavnið scanning a relief.

For few of the images we did not found the correct camera location but for most we could make a connection between past and present when standing at the correct position. At some positions we also found (historic?) survey markers.

The Eystaravág, the eastern part of the port of Tórshavn. On the right in the rephotography the bow of the Ternan the ferry to Nólsoy.

Overall we observed while rephotographing, that the Faroes are now more densily populated and that the road network is now more closely meshed. Most of the historical building are still standing. The cultural landscape change, potatoes and rhubarb are cultivated less and saw tooth fields are now pastures.

The result of the expedition is a database containing over 200 registered rephotographic compilations from the islands. The focus of the historic photographs and thus the rephotographs is on Tórshavn and Kirkjubøur.