COULD A SPATIAL DATABASE OF HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS BE USED FOR RURAL TOURISM PROMOTION?

Abstract

Historical photographs contain valuable information about the past state of a municipality and its surroundings. Over time, old structures and land patterns in the landscape become untraceable or indistinguishable, and determining the exact location from which a historic photograph was taken becomes complicated or impossible. People who are unfamiliar with the history of the location are unable to pinpoint where the photographs were taken or what it depicts. This reduces the informative value of historical photographs and prevents their wider use. To conserve photographs, along with their localisation and direction, a spatial database was created based on historical property records maps, digital elevation model, and panoramas from Seznam.cz. The study was carried out in the Luková cadastral area, located in the Czech Republic. Overall, 395 photographs were acquired, of which 225 were historical photographs ranging from 1845 to the 1980s. The remaining photographs were taken in 2015. All acquired photographs primarily capture rural buildings and sacred objects. From photographs, the historical rural character of the municipality could be determined, as well as objects of interest for rural tourism. In a comparison of photographs of buildings from the 1980s and 2015, loss of local architecture and traditional gardens can be seen.