Share old photos and stories online

As stated in the introduction, the Historypin website is still in test phase, so parts of it may not operate perfectly. That said, we haven’t experienced many hiccups during our testing. To begin, launch a web browser and click once in the Address or Location bar to highlight what’s there. Now replace it by typing www.historypin.com and then press Enter. To watch a short video explaining the Historypin plan, click the Play button on the Youtube thumbnail at the bottom right of the Historypin website. Alternatively, to dive right in, click the Explore the map link.

The amount of information on the map page can seem overwhelming at first, so take a few moments just to take it all in. In the middle is a Google Maps chart (centred on London in our screenshot) that’s dotted with ‘pinned’ photo thumbnails. At the top left is a two-field search box and to the right of this a pair of slider controls for setting a particular timeline. On the right-hand side is a ‘Popular Pics’ window that is essentially a list of links to today’s most-viewed images/stories.

To home in on an area or topic of interest, use the search box at the top left. To find photos in and around Norfolk, say, click in the ‘Find photos near’ box and type Norwich. Alternatively – or in addition – use the ‘Of’ box to specify a topic, such as Schools. Click Search to view the results.

Here, we searched only for ‘Norwich’. Historypin automatically centres the map on the East Anglian capital and overlays it with pins and thumbnails. These represent specific locations where other Historypin users have posted photos and/or stories. A group of pins on top of a ‘stack’ of thumbnails indicates there are several photos in an area (detailed by the small number in the bottom right of a thumbnail). Currently, there are 12 photos in the centre of Norwich.

There are a couple of ways to drill down to view the photos. One option is to use the zoom slider on the left-hand side of the map: either left-click and drag the slider up and down or click ‘+’ repeatedly to zoom in a bit at a time. To reposition the map, simply left-click and drag on any part of it. We’ve zoomed in quite a bit and, with the better map detail, we have a clear idea of where the various photos are pinned. Here, for example, we’ve clicked on a pinned thumbnail stack in Norwich’s famous market district. Historypin pops up a new window that shows thumbnails of the individual photos: to view one, just click it. A slightly larger version of the photo appears to fill the small pop-up window. To view an even bigger version, just click again.

A larger pop-up window appears, replete with a Stories pane on the right-hand side. If other users have submitted their own memories of the photo, or the area to which it relates, then they will appear here. Now, to see something really clever, click the View in Street View button on the bottom right of the photo window. Historypin overlays the photo onto modern Google Street View photography, in more or less the exact spot it was taken. Here, for instance, it has accurately placed a photo of Norwich market in the 1920s on top of a much more recent photo of the famous candy striped bazaar.

Close the pop-up window by clicking the ‘Back to map’ button on the far right. Remember the timeline slider control at the top? Use this to filter the available photos. Here, for example, we’ve moved the right-hand slider back to the 1900, so Historypin will display photos marked as being taken before this year. As such, the pin marking the 1920s’ photo of Norwich market has now disappeared from the map view.

By now you’ll have realised that browsing Historypin is open to all. However, uploading photos or stories will require registration. To do this, click the Join tab. If you already have a Google account (you’ll have one if you use Gmail, for example) then click the Login button and log in using your usual Google username and password. Otherwise, click ‘Register now’ and follow the prompts to create an account. Either way, when asked, click the Grant access button to allow Historypin access to Google’s Picasa Web Albums service: this is necessary as Historypin will make use of a Picasa Web Albums account in your name to store any uploaded photos. Don’t worry – it’s quite safe, and you don’t need to do anything by way of setup.

Type in a username (this will be attached to any photos or stories posted on Historypin), click ‘Save (and take me to the map)’ and you’re ready to go. To add a photo, for example, click the Add your photos link at the top of the map page (note that the Write a story link is alongside but we won’t be demonstrating that here). Now click the Select Photo button and use the Windows Explorer dialogue box to choose a photo from your computer’s hard disk (stored in JPEG, GIF or PNG format). Repeat for up to six photos at a time then click Upload all photos. Click Continue when finished.

Use the form to fill in as many details as possible about the photo and use the Your Story section to write whatever supporting information you want. Now the tricky bit: pinning the photo accurately to the map. Scroll down to the Pin it to the map section, type in a rough location in the search box and click Find on map. Click and drag the pinned thumbnail to position it as accurately as possible. If you’re feeling very helpful, click the Pin to Street View icon at the bottom right. Now navigate through Street View to precisely angle the view to match the photo. Click Finish and then View my photos on the map.