Ronnie  Inglis

Ronnie  Inglis was a photographer.  He worked for Francis Caird Inglis' film processing business based at 30 Dean Street.  These premises were acquired by Edinburgh Cameras in 1973.

Denny Russell, Edinburgh

Ronnie  Inglis

Ronnie Inglis came from a photographic family.  He was a brilliant technician.  His silver shots for Hamilton & Inches  were superb, long before Lastolites and ready made solutions.

Hamilton & Inches are a large long-established Jewellers in George St.

Ronnie  lived for a period (in childhood?) on Calton Hill, and I always understood it to be at Rock House with its obvious resonances.

This would be consistent with Ronnie Inglis being related to Francis Caird Inglis. Several photographers have been based at Rock House, Calton Hill, beginning with Hill & Adamson, 1843-47 and including AA Inglis, his son FC Inglis and his son AA Inglis (2), 1881-1949.

Ronnie  Inglis and Les Stevens

Ronnie Inglis ran a business for some years from a studio at the foot of Leith Walk before joining Les Stevens in a business in the old Campbell Harper premises in Dundas Street.

Marion Boron and Les Stevens

Marion Boron  worked latterly at Campbell Harpers with Annie Harper before going to the Napier College when it opened around 1965.  He taught Les Stevens in the first year of the College.

Ronnie  Inglis and Alastair Hunter

Ronnie was one of Edinburgh's best technical photographers.  In the 1970s, Alistair Hunter, and Ronnie were Edinburgh's two leading architectural photographers.

Alastair Hunter, Les Stevens and Ronnie Inglis

George 'Les' Stevens was Alistair's assistant in a basement studio in Great Stuart Street whilst Ronnie had a studio at the foot of Leith Walk, just before Constitution Street. They worked closely together, swapped kit.

Les Stevens and Ronnie Inglis

Ronnie and Les got together and took over the old Campbell Harper premises in the Dundas Street basement - 10a? 

All went fine and they built a superb studio with 4x5, 10x8 and Hasslblads and were the first to use 'fish fryers' the early Broncolour flash soft-lights we now take for granted.

Ronnie's work was often in architectural journals.   Les the more creative.  Both were top rate technicians.  There was also a lab technician, Charlie (from the Isles) who now runs J S Marr.

The two of them were responsible for the formal portraits taken of Principles and Honorary Graduates (Sean Connery, King Olaf and so on) for Heriot-Watt College for about ten years long after I had left.

Ronnie and Les built a solid business till in 1985 when Les suddenly developed heart failure as a result of a childhood illness, and despite being rushed by air ambulance to Cambridge he died a week following a heart transplant.

The partnership was very close, but I lost touch with Ronnie not long after it ended.  I only later head that he had gone to Brighton  University to teach photography.

He is now, in 2005, at the Bournemouth Arts Institute.

Martin Bone, Currie, Edinburgh:  December 21,23,24, 2005