If you have an image img
(which is a numpy array) you can convert it into string using:
>>> img_str = cv2.imencode('.jpg', img)[1].tostring()
>>> type(img_str)
'str'
Now you can easily store the image inside your database, and then recover it by using:
>>> nparr = np.fromstring(STRING_FROM_DATABASE, np.uint8)
>>> img = cv2.imdecode(nparr, cv2.CV_LOAD_IMAGE_COLOR)
where you need to replace STRING_FROM_DATABASE
with the variable that contains the result of your query to the database containing the image.