A new trend emerging in the information age is the use of photographs, pictures, and images to keep records of past happenings. These visual records can hold far more information than a few random notes scribbled on a piece of paper or saved in a digital diary.
An essential feature of visual records is the settings or surroundings in which a memory or a point in time was saved. These surroundings can be an integral part of who we are and what life was for us at that time. The physical settings around us can stay the same for a long time or can undergo significant changes. What we may like to examine through these visual records is not the surroundings per se, but the effects the tides of time had on us and our relationship to the physical world.
A Website dearphotograph.com serves the same simple purpose. By inviting people to upload and share their pictures, which have been taken at two distant points in time but have the same background or physical settings, the Website has stirred up in many people a new interest to look back to the old times and give a new lease of life to the memories they cherish so much.
source: http://www.thedesignwork.com/beautiful-examples-of-dear-photograph/