A picture tells a thousand years
By Colin Hinshelwood
Elephant pulls a log in Chiang Mai
Picture in your mind a caravan of camels journeying across the steppes of the Silk Road. It’s a timeless image—a scene which probably looks much the same today as it did a thousand years ago.
But what has changed is the way it has been recorded and depicted by scribes, artists and photographers over time. In the ancient Middle East, bright and colourful illuminations were the popular medium for telling stories and recording events, while Japanese painters used subtle watercolors and pastel shades which still today evoke sensations of the 'floating world'—cherry blossoms, Geishas in kimonos and samurai clansmen. And of course, in the past 150 years photography has allowed us a key into the past—those cherished sepia memories of our ancestors and of yesteryear.
Pictures From History is an innovative photo library which was launched online recently by Chiang Mai-based news agency CPA Media. The website specializes in Asian history and Asian culture—from the Middle East to the Far East and everything in between.
Some books you can’t put down; Pictures From History is just such a page-turner—a site that entices the history surfer deeper into Asian epochs such as Chinese dynasties, wondrous Buddhist and Hindu temples, and the warriors and tyrants of Asian history, from Genghis Khan to Pol Pot.
The commercial arm of the site is aimed very clearly at the photo editors of the international press, travel guides and historical magazines. However, any red-blooded history buff will get lost inside the archives of pictures, paintings and ancient scripts that CPA has compiled.
King Kawilorot of Chiang Mai 1856-70
The best way to navigate this site is to type into the Search Box a country, an era or an interest, such as 'Thai Buddhist temples', 'Islamic literature', 'Indochina Wars' or 'Japanese Art'. However, the site also offers a hearty selection of 'themes' to whet your appetite—collections of revolving images, which you can click on at any time to go directly to a series of related photos. Individual images are accompanied by a paragraph or two of historical and at times anecdotal information about the picture, the people and the period in time.
Colourful themes include: 'Ancient Angkor, Eighth Wonder of the World', 'Old Shanghai—City of Wealth, Inequality and Vice', 'Women in African and Asian History', 'The Great Khans and the Mongol Imperium' and 'Graham Green’s Saigon Revisited'.
Pictures From History includes a 'safe search' facility to avoid pictures that have graphic displays of violence, such as photographs of war crimes. This is just one of the features that makes this site an ideal tool for schoolchildren, and CPA plans to launch educational aspects in the future, as well as interpretations in languages other than English.
CPA Media is a small home-knit business, headed by three expat Brits: historian and Islamic scholar Dr Andrew Forbes, photographer David Henley and journalist Colin Hinshelwood.
Over a period of 40 years, they have built an impressive library of books, photography, scripts and archives, which they have finally decided to digitize and offer commercially online.
The shelves of their online library are also crammed with news articles, historical feature stories and even a few tourist destination pieces—all set in Asia, many of which are timeless classics.
Picture library: http://www.picturesfromhistory.com
Articles: http://www.cpamedia.com
