The CTPS will be celebrating this outstanding achievement with a special “125” event at Artscape. They will be exhibiting photographs from 1890 to 2015, and this will include glass slide images as well as prints, old and new.
CTPS is celebrating 125 years of involvement in, and commitment to, photography in the Western Cape. On the 30th October it will be 125 years to the day that the first meeting was held at St George’s School-room, Wale Street in Cape Town.
As part of the celebration for the auspicious occasion the CTPS has arranged an Exhibition held over two weeks where they will be displaying images captured over the last 125 years. The exhibition will cover photographs from each decade from 1890, through to submissions from their current members, and will be held in the Marble Foyer at the ArtScape from 21 July to 3 August.
The CTPS has spent about six months preparing for the exhibition, going through boxes of 100s of old photos in their archives, and it was a great find when they came across the image of 1890 Table Mountain, several glass slides and many old prints where the change from black and white prints to the introduction of colour prints are evident. In the selection of prints to exhibit, the idea was to try to cover each decade. As far as possible they only used images where they could find the name of the photographer and the date of the image, as you can image this was a most interesting endeavour.
The “Cape Town Photographic Society | Celebrating 125 years of Photography” exhibition will be open to the public on Wednesday 22nd July in the Marble Foyer at the Artscape, Cape Town. Please make sure you don’t miss out!
It is of interest to note that the concept of photography as we know it today was being developed globally from the mid 19th Century, and it was our close links with individuals of the Royal Photographic Society of London that played an important role in establishing a keen interest in photography in Cape Town.
Advertisement in the local newspaper in 1890
“All those interested in Photography are desired to attend a meeting at the St George’s School-room, Wale Street, on THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30 1890 AT 8 P.M. for the purpose of forming a Photographic Society.”
The first minutes record that Mr BA Lewis chaired the meeting and “about thirty gentlemen were present when it was decided to form the Cape Town Photographic Club.”
“We are most grateful to Mike and several Orms staff for their support and involvement in getting these photographs ready for the Exhibition.” – Pat Scott
UPDATE: We visited the exhibition to have a quick look. Make sure you pop round before August 3rd, it’s not on for long and it’s very interesting to see. Here’s a few snaps from what you can expect…
This is our heritage, our place of birth, origin.
Without the ability to capture the living world in a state of stasis through art-
humans would only have been able to see things they have heard through stories,
In times such as these its best to remember who we were,
to understand who we are,
this being said,
to make clear what our people must become.