Wayne Laprade was the guest speaker at the May 20 meeting of the CDHS in the Heritage Centre. From the left: Laprade is seen during his presentation, with President Caroline Roberts and Vice President John Pemberton listening attentively. Thompson Goddard Photo

CHESTERVILLE – There was a full house at the Heritage Centre in Chesterville for the May 20 meeting of Chesterville and District Historical Society. Wayne Laprade, who has lived in Chesterville most of his live, was the guest speaker at the meeting and provided an interesting and detailed presentation on his career as a newspaperman and photographer for those who attended.

Laprade, who is well know in the community, spoke about his early life in Chesterville and his photography career. He noted how his career as a photographer began as a youngster with the purchase of a Kodak Brownie camera.

As a young adult, Laprade started working at The Chesterville Record as an apprentice typesetter and described in great detail the printing process during that period of time. Eventually he started taking photographs for the paper, noting he learned how to develop the photos at the Record office on King Street.

Eventually Laprade purchased The Chesterville Record with local resident Blake Feeley and eventually sold it to the Morris family with Robin Morris assuming ownership of the paper. It was following the sale that Laprade started his photography career.

He purchased a building on Industrial Drive on the outskirts of Chesterville for his studio and office. Laprade offered his clients the opportunity to capture milestones in their life, such as wedding, family, school and passport photos as well as teaching photographic classes. He noted how his business changed throughout his career as a result of technological advances in the field, mentioning he worked for 35 years as a photographer and 25 years in the newspaper business.

During his interesting and informative presentation, Laprade spoke about the different types of cameras he used and described the advantages of digital cameras in photography. Prior to digital cameras a person would only take two or three pictures and if there were issues with them they would have to be sent to specialist companies to have errors such as closed eyes corrected. It was mentioned how today this can be done by the individual using computer editing programs.

Laprade has donated several of the cameras he used during his photographic career to the Chesterville and District Historical Society. These are on display at the Heritage Centre, which will be open weekends in the summer as well as during the Art on The Waterfront which is scheduled for the first weekend in June.

More information on the CDHS is available on their social media pages as well as their website located at https://chestervilleanddistricths.weebly.com.