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mountains and ventured along the seashore to take photos, and loved picnics at these places.

(Fig. 2.4). He would return periodically to the same town, set up his camera on the same spot,
and record the changed scene. These ‘time-lapse’ photos have proved invaluable in heritage

studies, for example, of the Mission settlement of Genadendal, the village of Greyton, and
many others. He visited the south Peninsula at least five times between 1901 and 1920 and set

up his camera on many of the same spots.

As a personality he was, according to Felicity Jervis, very private, very conservative, very

religious, very spiritual. For example, he was particularly moved by churches and tree avenues
in which he saw parallels between the colonnaded tree stems and the colonnaded interiors of

cathedrals soaring upwards to the heavens. He remained fascinated by astronomy for the whole

of his life and studied the heavens with his powerful telescope. He would not photograph
women unless they were suitably dressed and wearing a hat; he also believed women should

not be seen on the beach in bathing attire even though, at the time, both women and men were
required to wear a garment covering the body from the neck to the knee. He was a lay preacher

of the ‘fire and brimstone’ variety who, every Sunday during his Hermanus years, dressed in a
black suit and hat and drove his Austin car to Hawston where he preached and delivered

religious tracts to the fishing community.

In 1918, aged 67, he retired to Hermanus and continued his photographic work, particularly

portraiture, until a week before his death in 1948. His wife Elizabeth had died in 1925. In his
day he was said to be “the world’s oldest practising professional photographer.” He had been

doing photography continuously for 77 years. (Figs. 2.5 – 2.7).

Selected ‘Now and Then’ photos Lakeside to Simon’s Town

In preparation for this talk I examined about 2,500 photos: the Ravenscroft Collection of 1,963

photos; the Ravenscroft Family website, put up by great-great grandson Rollo Ravenscroft,

which has over 260 photos; three postcard collections (Mike Deeks, Malcolm Murphy, and
David Wolpe); and two undated albums of Ravenscroft photos lent by Ronnie Glass. In the

south Peninsula Kalk Bay was his favourite place and he took over 50 photos here, compared
with 8 at Muizenberg, Simon’s Town 7, St James 5, Lakeside 4, and Fish Hoek 2. The

following 42 ‘then’ photos are partnered with 33 current photos taken from as close as possible
to the same spots where Ravenscroft set up his camera more than 100 years ago.