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Les Broadstreet
Hatteberg's People
Reporter: Larry Hatteberg
| January 9, 2004--On Hatteberg’s People he is Wichita’s oldest Master Photographer who is still working and still loving it. Les Broadstreet has taken pictures of Kansas’s elite and not so elite for seven decades. And at 87, the aging lensmen has no plans to quit. |
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“I’ve never been able to relax.”
A camera is just a piece of polished metal.
The lens is nothing more than glass.
But when Les Broadstreet puts that camera to his eye, as he has done since 1936, the camera becomes a magic box of color and light.
“I’ve been able in my 68 years to touch a life or two.”
It has been a lifetime of work for Broadstreet….and at 87, it continues for one of Wichita’s oldest master photographers.
“I just enjoy people, I can’t quit, I just enjoy what I do.”
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His photographs are on display at City Arts in Old Towne, but it is only a small portion of his work. How do you put a lifetime on a wall?
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Broadstreet walked with me down the wall of pictures at City Arts, explaining each one in detail, including the one of a bird on post.
“I’ve had a lot of fun doing it. People ask me if it’s a stuffed bird or not. I just answer that with all the food I fed him he certainly ought to be stuffed.”
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| If you’ve never heard of Les, you’ve certainly seen his work. His cityscapes are legendary. Wichita through the eyes of a photographic master, who after nearly nine decades is not ready to quit.
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While photography is his joy, so is his wife Bernice. He is her full time caregiver and after 65 years of marriage their lives are framed together.
“The Lord has been so good to me in so many ways.”
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And Les has been good to us, capturing those little moments that make us smile for give us a sense of history. Les Broadstreet just keeps on clicking.
“It sure beats carrying rocks to a rock crusher at 25 cents an hour when I was in high school.”
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Larry’s note: Les Broadstreet’s display on the second floor of City Arts in Old
Towne lasts through January 14th.
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