FMP - WIP - image selection - part 2 - too much change/too little change, what is optimal for a re-photograph?

As I mentioned in the previous post, the Sofia of 100 years ago is very, very different from the modern megalopolis (and yes, it is pretty big since it takes more than 2 hours to cross in diameter using public transportation). Sofia has around a million and a half inhabitants according to the last census BUT there are just as many people who currently live in the city but are not registered here. 

When selecting the images I needed to be confined to the old city of Sofia from the beginning of the XX century which is roughly what we now call the downtown. The area is locked between two bridges - Lions' bridge to the north-west and Eagles' bridge to the south-east. 100 years ago these were the edges of the city. Today, they just mark where old buildings can be seen. 

However, even this clarification was not enough since there are changes and changes. In the previous post I mentioned that the Totalitarian regime demolished much of the old city center (badly damaged in the WWII bombings) to make way for the new brutalist Stalinist-realism one that can be seen now (the TV crews that come to shoot in Bulgaria usually use that place as a substitute for Moscow since the huge buildings look so alike to the ones there). Hence, there was no point of using any images from the old Targovska street - once the trading heart of the city with amazing Viennese architecture since that street no longer exists and the places are unrecognizable. 

There are many other places like that and while selecting the images, I came across some curious examples, such as this: 

Source: http://www.lostbulgaria.com/?p=2891

This is actually Lions' bridge in 1879 but the landscape has changed so much that this picture cannot be used for re-photography (I tried, it was a disaster, more on that in another post). Not to mention that the point of view is impossible to copy since at that place there are much taller buildings now - one of them, at this exact same spot, a brothel which I am totally not willing to go in. Probably the photographer back then climbed up atop of a roof but right now this image is not only impossible to recognise but also non-doable. Some of the archives were full of amazing images in terms of subject but totally inappropriate for re-photography. 

At the other end of the spectrum were the amazing buildings in downtown that have not changed one bit for the past 130 years. There are some of them and even though I love them - like this building, housing the Ministry of Agriculture (see below) - there is no point to photograph a place that has not changed:

Source: https://www.bgfermer.bg/Article/6269144

I needed places which have changed over those 130 years or so or whose surroundings have changed significantly. On the other hand, I needed pictures shot from angles which I can mimic and of places that are deemed landmarks now.  Moreover, I needed around 18 images to choose from.

The initial selection - in a follow-up post.