A RENOWNED landscape photographer, founding member of Wimborne Camera Club, and former local business director has died.
Though modest in nature, Roger Keith Holman was heralded as one of the finest photographers in Dorset.
His photographs, illustrative Dorset books, audio-visual projects and electric business are just some of the ventures which made Roger a popular name in the county.
Roger Holman was born in Holt in 1932 and was the only child of William and Winnie Holman. A Dorset youngster through and through, Roger attended Lockyers in Corfe Mullen, then Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Wimborne.
Poetically, the school grounds were just yards from what would later be the premises of the family business. Roger recalled in a 1990 interview that the family lived “frugally” until this time, struggling to get by until the boom of television.
It wasn’t until after the Second World War that his father William acquired the King Street buildings, from which Holmans, a family run electrical kitchen and home appliances company, continues to operate today.
Following three years of National Service in the RAF, Roger joined his father in business. During this era, the outermost rural suburbs of Wimborne had no electricity. Roger and his father would drive to pick up residents’ radio charge accumulators and recharge them at the shop.
Roger saw opportunities for a shift in enterprise as domestic appliances became gradually more mainstream. He aided his father in the transition from radio repair to white goods wares, using his creativity and his local knowledge to grow the business.
At the dawn of audio-visual entertainment, Roger gravitated towards photography and began snapping Dorset’s landmarks and landscapes. He found a like-minded group as a founding member of the Wimborne Camera Club, which continues to operate for aspiring photographers today.
There are thousands of his prints in circulation: from glowing golden hour over Kimmeridge Bay, to the rocky ruins of Corfe Castle. Hundreds of these are accessible through Roger’s published books: ‘The Landscapes of Dorset’ (1991) and ‘The Villages of Dorset’ (1993), both co-produced with Roger Lane and Roger Gutteridge.
Before this, Roger imparted his flair for the visual arts to other photographers through his teach-ins at Avon Tyrell, running from 1967. Several annual projects co-organised by Roger continued into this decade – for example, the ‘Changing Face of Wimborne’ project, supported by the Priest House Museum and the Tivoli Cinema.
Dorset residents may also recall Roger’s imaginative audio-visual projects, such as ‘Hardy’s Dorset’ and ‘The Isle of Purbeck’, and COLOURSOUND. Touring the county with cameras in tow, this audio-visual group composed encyclopaedic, yet lyrical features to be shown at their annual COLOURSOUND festival. The event attracted keen photographers across Europe to bear witness to the county’s beautiful landscapes annually.
Roger’s successes did not stop there. In 1990, his photograph of Fiddleford Mill won the Best of Britain award in a competition judged by Lord Lichfield and film director David Puttnam. He was also bestowed with the highest honours from the Royal Photographic Society, which worked in conjunction with COLOURSOUND.
Roger married Rosemary Share in April 1958. The pair would go on to have three sons, Gary, Paul and Steve, and a daughter, Julie.
Roger and Rosemary were happily married for 56 years, until her death in 2014.
Two of his sons are presently directors of Holmans and all four children remain close.
Roger continued to pursue his passion until the very end of his life and recent prints can be found in shops, calendars, tourist pamphlets and family homes across Dorset.
Even in retirement, Roger visited Holmans regularly and was well beloved by customers and staff. In addition to photography, Roger found great joy in DIY, gardening, reading, and home cooking.
A humble man, interviewer Marilyn Ayres once remarked that Roger told her after finishing a profile piece, “if you find that you don’t have enough to write about, I won’t be hurt if the profile doesn’t appear”.
Roger suffered a stroke in the early hours of Sunday October 31. He died peacefully in Poole Hospital the following Thursday, November 4. He was 89 years old.
He is survived by his four children, eleven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
His funeral will be held at Poole Crematorium on Tuesday, November 23 at noon.
Have you recently lost a loved one? Email andrew.goldman@newsquest.co.uk if you want to celebrate their life with the community.
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