During the early part of 1890, Mr B A Lewis, manager of the Gas Works, and Mr T W Cairncross of Leeuwenhof, the present home of the Premier of the Western Cape, often talked of inviting a few amateur photographers to meet at convenient times to exchange ideas that might be beneficial to all concerned. It was decided to place an advertisement in one of the daily papers requesting those interested in photography to meet in the St George’s School room in Wale Street, on Thursday, 30th October 1890 for the purpose of forming a Photographic Society.

The first outing arranged was to the site of the present Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens and a Mr Ayres kindly provided a horse-drawn cart to transport the cameras, massive tripods and portable darkroom required to coat the plates ‘in the field’. The society organised the first International Exhibition of Photography in South Africa in 1907. Today Cape Town Photographic Society is the oldest photographic society in the Southern Hemisphere and is still extremely active. This is the new web community that will allow members to post information and interact with others for the purpose of personal enrichment in the field of photography, whilst it will allow visitors to see and sometimes comment on the activities of the Society