A keen photographer has set up a website documenting bygone times and comparing them to today.

Herts Advertiser: As Time Goes ByAs Time Goes By (Image: Archant)

Peter Altman, 74, from Bricket Wood and his wife went on holiday to the Canary Islands recently – where the couple spent their honeymoon 49 years ago.

There, he tried to re-create a honeymoon picture and it was so well received by those close to him, that it sparked new online project ‘As Time Goes By’.

Peter said: “Friends I have shown this to found it to be an interesting comparison, which made me wonder about gathering together other pictures separated in time. The result is my new website.

“Time moves on with it and things change. People, places and objects get older and their appearances alter, sometimes for the better and sometimes maybe not. Or technology improves and we can get better pictures compared to what we had before.

Herts Advertiser: As Time Goes ByAs Time Goes By (Image: Archant)

“It’s not so much the individual photos but more the changes that have taken place over time that we wish to preserve here.”

The website features photographs from then and now – often comparing subjects. For example, one image features a nine-inch television from the 1950s in a wooden cabinet. Beside it is a photograph depicting how televisions have moved on, showing a 46-inch modern-day set minus the dated surroundings.

A treasured snap of Peter on his tricycle as a child in 1945 in London’s Woodside Park, sits next to a modern-day image of the same house – 66 years on.

He explained: “I lived in that house as a child and when we went back, it was remarkably unchanged - except for the porch and the hedge had grown a bit.”

Herts Advertiser: As Time Goes ByAs Time Goes By (Image: Archant)

Another pair of pictures shows an old and new camera, which are barely recognisable as the same object.

A favourite comparison captures three people sitting on a cannon 70 years apart; Peter L, aged six, and his twin Mary and their seven-year-old cousin Keith at Carisbrooke Castle, Newport in the Isle of Wight in 1939 and 2009.

Peter, who has two doctorates in biochemistry, is talented at art as well as science. He loves photography and says he has “always embraced the Internet as a tool for making life easier and wouldn’t be without it”.

He invites visitors to his site to contribute their own images and short supporting or descriptive text.

They can be of people, places, pets or objects but they must show the same people/items at different times.

Email them to info@AsTimeGoesBy.biz or visit AsTimeGoesBy.biz for further details.