Arthur Harper LRPS - Obituary

Written by Albert Yome on 26 December 2022.

Lifetime President of the Gibraltar Photographic Society, Arthur Harper LRPS, passed away peacefully on 26thDecember.

He was a keen cyclist in his youth and became a member of the Gibraltar Cycling Club in 1952. He first got involved in photography back in 1950 and in 1965 was a founder member of the Gibraltar Photographic Society. In 1977 he was elected Chairman of the Photographic Society, a post he held continuously until 2013, a total of 36 years. On his retirement from this post in 2013 he was presented with an engraved glass gavel, and appointed Life President.

During his time as Chairman he saw the Society changing from a small, inward-looking group into the dynamic club that it is today. He was instrumental in in the Society obtaining its premises at Wellington Front in 1986, and through working closely with Cultural Services, having the status of photography becoming increasingly accepted as an art form.

Arthur was passionate about the Society and worked full out at maintaining the success of the Society as well as the well-being of its members, hardly every missing one of the weekly meetings.

He was a Life Member and Licentiate of the Royal Photographic Society, and in November 2020 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Gibraltar Cultural Services. In September 2022 he was entered into the Roll of Honour of the Southern Counties Photographic Federation of UK in recognition of and appreciation for dedicated and long service to Photography in Club and Federation.

Arthur was also had a keen interest in photographing and identifying the local wildflowers, going back to the mid-1960s, and was an active member of the Botanical Section of GONHS. He was involved in the collection of an herbarium for the Gibraltar Museum and was co-author of the book “The Flowers of Gibraltar”. In 1994 he, together with Leslie Linares and John Cortes, re-discovered the Gibraltar Campion, an endemic Gibraltar species believed to have been extinct up till then

He is survived by his daughter Myra and grandson Dylan.