Was the photo about taken in 1905 or 2015? Sometimes it’s hard to tell what is a genuinely old photograph and what is an Instagram creation.

This collection of photos of a girl on the beach have captured the imagination of the internet this week – when it was discovered that they were taken by her father in 1905.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell what is a genuinely old photograph and what is an Instagram creation

With her long flowing beach hair and dreamy surroundings, its not hard to imagine these pictures popping up on an Instagram feed today.

The pictures, which are some of the earliest examples of “autochrome” colour photography, seem to have a modern quality. They almost bridge the time passed in our minds and connect us to the day they were taken in a powerful way.

The girl’s father was called Mervan O’German. He was an author, photographer and electrical engineer, who lived near the coast in Dorset with his family.

With her long flowing beach hair and dreamy surroundings, its not hard to imagine these pictures popping up on an Instagram feed today

The girl pictured is called Christina. She wears red in every picture and she’s normally alone, but for one photograph with her mother and sister.

While the oddly modern look is an accidental occurrence in the pics. Their dreamy and fantastical tone might not have been intentional.

The long exposure time has given the sea a glassy quality in the background of the photos, with the large aperture setting and narrow depth of field putting the background into soft focus.

The pictures seem to have a modern quality which bridges the time passed

These photos have made us realise two things: how similar we all are, even when we are centuries apart, but more importantly, how reliable and unchanging the coast and the ocean is and has always been….