Before-and-after imagery is everywhere, and social media thrives on it. In an anxious age, it’s one of the most dramatic ways we take in the devastating effects of hurricanes, fires, and wars, or even the striking final reveal of a make-over show. We use before-and-after images to explain climate change and will undoubtedly make more use of them as we try to process the consequences of a massively degraded environment.

 

What is the history of before-and-after conventions? Where and when did such visual comparisons develop? What if knowing their history could provide a different way of understanding the convention, change over time, and even ourselves?