Rad artist Photoshops herself into her mom’s childhood

If you and your mother had grown up together, would you be besties? That’s the idea behind Portland artist Danielle Delph’s heartwarming new series If I Had Known My Mother Back Then, a collection of her mom’s childhood photographs that Delph digitally altered to look like the pair of them had grown up at the same time. In the pictures, Delph imagines being raised by her mother’s side. There are photos of them hanging out together as teenagers and as little girls.

It’s a neat bit of photo editing, and it’s also a super-loving tribute to her mother. “I’ve always wondered if my mom and I would have been friends had we grown up together,” Delph wrote on her website. “Would we be in the same classes? Would we have the same sense of humor? Would people tell us we’re inseparable? After seeing myself in her childhood photos, I’m pretty sure we would have been great friends.”

Delph, an advertising art director by day, who grew up in Kentucky, created a separate Tumblr, just called Danielle and Janis, that displays all her amazing altered images, along with a little note to her mom. She writes, “Thanks Mom for being the same friend to me now, that you would have been then.”

Love this whole thing. Just love it. Take a look at some of her images and try to decipher who’s who. Her project proves that some relationships are totally timeless.

(Images by Danielle Delph via DanielleandJanis)