Methods and systems may provide for obtaining a query image of a scene, wherein the query image includes embedded information and represents the scene at a time of capture. The embedded information may include location data and perspective data. Additionally, user input may be received, wherein the user input identifies a different time than the time of capture. A time-shifted image of the scene may be obtained based on the user input and the embedded information in the query image. Crowd sources and/or other public information sources may also be used to obtain the time-shifted image. In one example, the time-shifted image represents the scene at the different time.