Hi. I'm researching my Grandad and G. Grandad. A family member sent me this photo. Could anybody advise if this is WW1 or WW2 please? Thank you.
It could be neither. I don't think there's anything there that narrows it down apart from perhaps the shirts. It could be any time from WW1 through to the early part of WW2 - the fun on the North-West Frontier didn't stop for anything else.
And there's this The Khyber Riflemen and this Khyber Pass, The Frontier of India (1941) [668x571] and this Khyber pass railway – abn397
The photo came from an old box of family photos of an old relative and hasn't seen the light of day for years - so i'm 100% sure there is no PS enhancement. But the fact that it's in the box maybe means one of them was in India at some point. Maybe i will find out.
I think the writing has been enhanced, but would say it was done so at the time the photo was being printed - possibly by touching up the negative to make the writing easier to read.
Sometimes photographers enhanced details after developing if they weren't up to scratch. Just like some b&w images were colour tinted by hand. So could well be entirely contemporary with time of image-taking. Hence Idler's comment ... "That's been ye-olde-photoshoppe-d for effect"
As regards the Pakistan frontier shown,the Pakistan state was not created until post WW2 and that was in August 1947 when it was agreed that India on independence would be split into the two states of India and Pakistan. That indicates that the Pakistan photograph is post August 1947. (Then following the 1971 insurrection against Pakistan,East Pakistan became Bangladesh in freeing itself from Pakistan rule.)
The photo in the OP was taken after WW1 as the sign used to read "It is absolutely forbidden to cross this border into Afghan territory" and there are various photos one of which shows British officers with late 1920s style cars. Sometime before 1936 it had changed to the wording in the the OP and become very much the place for tourists to have their photo taken. It also features on a number of picture post cards and the lettering appears enhanced on some of these. At one time there was a simple guard hut and a counterweighted striped pole across the road. Judging by other photos it was not the main entrance into the pass but it was the one that had a very clear image of a border hence the tourist attraction. It is very much the picture chosen by "Carry on Up the Khyber" which appears to have been inspired in some of its imagery by a story, in The Hornet comic, complete with kilted soldiery.
The signage originally changed due to a visit of the Viceroy. This would have been Lord Irwin who was very much an advocate of improvements in the frontier areas. There was the usual smartening and even tarting up in preparation. The visit was in April 1930 which puts a lower limit on when the OP photo was taken see Brandon Douglas Marsh, Ramparts of Empire; India's North West Frontier and British Imperialism 1919 - 1947, The University of Texas at Austin, 2009 Pages 71- 80
I wonder about the Pakistani frontier photo. The uniform looks closer to the Raj period Khyber Rifles uniform. (See 1946 photo) than 1958 as Stars and Stripes contends the date to be. Under British command a Khaki jacket/shirt was worn, under Pakistani it's dark blue. The belt buckle of two Afghan daggers is right for the Raj period too. I wonder if it's another case of ye olde photoshop, as a photographer/post card supplier might find it easier (and a lot safer) to doctor existing negative stock rather than send someone to the frontier to take another photo when Partition occurred.
This one is dated 1955. A woman taking a photograph at the frontier between Pakistan and... News Photo - Getty Images
Thanks guys. So i suspect this picture is a bit of a red herring in my research and is either from a postcard or was a 'tourist' shot. Thank you.
Now that's a very good point Owen. I hadn't even seen the writing until you mentioned it! Ok i have some phonecalls to make tomorrow and will feed back.
Ok I have an update. Alf in the picture is one if my Great Uncles. So as he would probably have been of similar age to the Grandad i'm researching in WW2, i'm assuming the original photo in the thread must have been taken during or shortly after WW2 - or as Harry Bee said, around 1947?
And if the signage dates from the Viceroy's visit in April 1930 this effectively means sometime in the 1930s