​​Former Worthing photographer from long-standing family firm celebrates 100th birthday

Derek was born in Worthing on April 12, 1924, and worked in the family firm, Walter Gardiner Photography, as the third generation in the photographic business in the town.

His grandparents Walter and Annie Gardiner founded the firm in 1893, while his mother was from another of Worthing's family firms, which ran Walter Brothers, a large department store in Montague Street.

Derek joined the RAF during the Second World War and served in India, where he was processing photographic film. He joined the family firm in 1947 and took over its direction from his father, William Gardiner.

Derek met his wife, Betty, at the Sussex Film Society in 1953 and they were soon married, setting up home in Brighton for a short time before building a house in modernist style in Warren Road, Worthing, where they brought up three children.

The shop in The Arcade sold cameras and other photographic equipment, as well as having a studio for portraits, but by the late 1960s, the emphasis of the work was changing.

Derek increasingly directed the work towards commercial and advertising photographs, working for local and regional companies. He gained a national reputation, twice winning the Ilford Photographic Award. He was appointed a Fellow of the British Institute of Professional Photography and later became president of the institute.

Come the 1970s and the nature of work was altering again. The shop and studio were closed in 1974, and a laboratory with a large new studio, built for commercial photography, was opened in Broadwater.

After retirement in 1995, Derek continued to explore the use of images as art, exhibiting his work until his sight began to fail. Now, at 100, he looks back on a century which has seen the character of Worthing transformed, having navigated the changing commercial landscape.