Veteran photographer Dunstan no more

Veteran photographer and journalist Dunstan Wickramaratna passed away on Tuesday night. He was 80.

His last rites were conducted last evening at the General Cemetery, Borella according to his wishes.

During a career in photography spanning nearly five decades, Dunstan covered many landmark events including the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana in 1982, a rare distinction for a Lankan photographer.

He was educated at St. Aloysius College, Galle and developed an early interest in photography after watching his father at work. His first photograph was of the hoisting of the flag of late Bishop N. M. Laudadio during the Marian Congress, taken with a Kodak Box camera. This photograph appeared in the pages of the Ceylon Catholic Messenger and the sister paper ‘Gnanartha Pradeepaya’ in 1944.

His father Fred Wickramaratna owned the Fred Wicks studio, Kaluwella. He followed his father’s footsteps in this field.

He was Provincial Correspondent in Galle for the Davasa Group of newspapers. He was selected by the late D. B. Dhanapala for the job. Later, Dunstan shifted to the Davasa head office in Colombo in 1962 and remained there till the Davasa Group was closed down in 1990. He then joined the Sunday Times and served for nearly two decades, first as Pictures Editor and then as Consultant, Picture’s Editor of the Sunday Times. He retired in 2009.

Dunstan has won several photography awards in his long career and had the rare distinction of covering the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana in 1981. He received a letter of appreciation from Buckingham place after the coverage.

He was awarded the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award at the Journalism Awards for Excellence- 2012 conducted by the Editor’s Guild of Sri Lanka.

He was also awarded the ‘Kithunu Sammana’ by the former Archbishop Dr. Nicholas Marcus Fernando   in 2001 for the services he has rendered to the catholic media. He is survived by his wife Greta Wickramaratna (Retried Registrar of Marriages) and has two daughters Shymalee and Pryanthi who are both teachers.