Photographer aims for 100 portraits of centenarians

A photographer is aiming to capture 100 portraits of centenarians - recording their stories along the way.

In 2012 Kevin Wilson, from Dorchester, Dorset, photographed 20 100-year-olds for his fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society, and the collection was turned into a book.

He revived the project after being asked to photograph a friend's 105-year-old mother and has so far gathered portraits of 56 of people who are 100 years old or more.

He is still looking for subjects and hopes to complete the project by the end of the year before holding an exhibition.

Wilson said: "I had no intention of publishing a book, my intention was to get a fellowship with these pictures.

"I did the fellowship and my printer at the time said 'I would love to make a book for you on the people you've photographed'.

"He formulated this book, plus he did some research on some of these people and they had some quite remarkable stories."

The Covid pandemic forced Wilson to pause his work but a commission to photograph a friend's mother two years ago "reinvigorated" him to find more century-old subjects.

He said: "I thought I'm never ever going to get 100 but if I could get 50 that's quite an achievement.

"What I find, when you are doing a project, is one thing leads to another - there will be a care home or somebody who knows someone who is going to be 100."

He added: "I've got eight or nine that are ready to be photographed and I'm hoping to have this done by Christmas."

According to the Office of National Statistics there were 16,600 centenarians in the UK in 2024 - this has doubled from 8,300 in 2004.