Bored Panda contacted Richie and Duane who kindly agreed to give an interview regarding the whole idea, process, and struggles in recreating such photos.
First of all, Richie started by sharing insights on how the idea came to life: “Well, going way back, the original inspiration to even take so many photos of ourselves came from my parents, who had many cherished photo albums documenting their marriage. So, when Duane and I met at 18 and 19 years old and began our relationship, I knew I wanted to take lots of pictures, too. On one of our first dates, we went to Grand Central Station, where they actually had a vintage photo booth machine inside the men's room. That was the first photo we ever took together, in November 1981.”
Additionally, Duane emphasized that, “We now have boxes filled with 42 years of our photos, and we've always wanted to do something creative with them, like perhaps a coffee table book. We actually used to recreate them, not for video, but just to amuse ourselves when there was nothing on TV! So, it was a natural progression to do it on TikTok. We'd seen other creators recreating old photos, but it's not easy to do it well. We enjoy a challenge, so we tried it and our videos took off.”
Now, speaking about the hardest part in the whole process, Duane says that they wanted to make them as perfect as possible and “sometimes that meant getting clothes that match the originals, if not precisely, then at least conceptually. Some of the poses were not so easy to recreate, because we were very skinny and more limber back then! And the camera lenses were very different than an iPhone camera's. So it took a lot of trial and error to get the proper proportions and composition.” Richie also shared that “as a comedy team, we know that the punchline in these videos is when we magically turn into the old photo. So, if our faces and bodies don't match the original perfectly, the joke is sort of ruined.”
Additionally, Richie shared a useful tip for everybody who wants to recreate their photos that helped them: “I would advise them to scan their photos, not just take a pic of a framed photo. And do some color correction, if they can. It helps to have the photo on a separate device to refer to as a guide, and be very careful to make yourself match the original pose. But be prepared to work! Sometimes we do about 40 to 50 takes before we are satisfied. But we also do that because we kiss in most of these videos, and we enjoy doing that part the most!”
The creators stated that the response they got from viewers of these videos had taken them completely by surprise. “It's thrilling that they've gone so viral and it's heartwarming to receive so many messages of love. But the amount of hate comments has been remarkable,” Richie started. “And boring! I mean, come on, guys. Be a little more creative than just posting twenty three vomit emojis,” Duane jokingly commented.
Also, they shared some comments on how “young people think life was hard for gay couples back in the '80s but it really wasn't. We were having fun and rarely experienced the sort of nasty homophobic comments that people on social media feel empowered to spew. As we've said elsewhere, it doesn't bother or affect us; it's just odd that there's so much hate out there for some harmlessly wholesome videos.”
And, of course, don’t forget to check out their TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube channels! Additionally, you can find their most viral videos on TikTok here, here, here and here. And also Instagram videos such as this and this!
