FRIENDS and family members paid fitting tribute to the memory of Richard Longstaff of Cockermouth with an exhibition of his unique photographs.

The successful exhibition, at the Kirkgate Centre, featured 50 framed images from the vast catalogue he left behind after his tragic death five months (February 25) ago following a fall from the east buttress of Scafell in the western Lake District.

Some of the photographs featured in the exhibition were taken at or near the summit of Scafell during his final walk on a sunlit hard-frozen day in February - and were retrieved from the camera found with him.

A passionate walker and rock climber, retired English teacher Richard was also a published poet and a new work, Collected Poem, sold well during the exhibition.

His older brother Christopher, from Shropshire, said: "A lot of us, including me, didn't appreciate the qualities he had as a poet.

"I'm not into poetry but Richard's work is not arty stuff ... it has strength and meaning and can speak to us all."

Richard's photographic eye managed to turn the mundane and ordinary into art. The work for sale included studies of a peeling roadside salt bin, posts on a beach, graffiti on a front door (his own front door after the 2009 floods devastated Gote Road), balloons on a gate, a pile of old tyres, droplets of water on a shiny metal and a flower bud emerging in springtime to set alongside images of rust, death and decay.

Philomena Taylor of Levens, who was previously proprietor of The Arthouse gallery in Brigham, and who helped to hang the exhibition, said: "Richard was able to produce art from his camera and only somebody with his eye could make rubbish in a river look so interesting.

"There was more than just a surface to his images - they had many levels of meaning from the miniscule to the abstract."

Richard's life partner Liz Harrop, was particularly keen to pay tribute to the three fellow walkers who were the first to reach him after his fall and who fought to keep him alive - Mick Pearce of Egremont, Gordon Ritson of Cleator Moor and Neil Harrison of Millom.

She said: "Richard was in the world he loved on the day he died - walking solo on a beautiful day as he had done for 45 years.

"He chose that day because the weather was to break in the next few days as the "beast from the east" moved in.

"He would have been proud of the exhibition and we hope this won't be the last because he left behind literally thousands of quality images on computer hard drives."

One of the most talked about images in display was one of Richard climbing a cliff face high above Treen Beach in Cornwall and was taken by a friend. The fact that Richard was naked when the picture was taken didn't surprise anyone who knew him.

"He ignored most conventions in this world and I'm sure he's doing so in the next," said one friend.

Last month, Richard's family and loved ones scattered his ashes on Scafell on what would have been his 72nd birthday.