Celeb snapper has stars in his eyes

DEREK Ward’s personal photo album is straight out of Hollywood.

Movie fan Derek has travelled tens of thousands of kilometres to meet his silver screen heroes.

And he always has his camera ready to capture those special moments with some of the greatest names of film.

Derek, aged 42, who is a security man at the Mid Western Regional Hospital, developed his interest in film while working for 10 years in a cinema in his native Newcastle On Tyne in the north-east of England.

“After leaving that job I contacted various studios in England and got work as an extra on films and TV productions. It was at that time I began to avail of the opportunity of meeting some of the big names to get photos with them for my album,” he said.

Now, his collection of pictures has swelled to more than 200 - the envy of any film fan. They include such greats as Maureen O’Hara of The Quite Man fame, Stuart Granger, John Hurt, Richard Attenborough and many more.

He said: “Richard Harris was a favourite of mine. I have moved to Limerick some years ago and heard he was over doing some film work for a US documentary on his life. However, when I found out about it, he was on his way back to the UK. On finding out he was flying out from Shannon I rushed to the airport and managed to catch up with him before he left and got a picture. It was just great.”

He was delighted that Crash picked up the Oscar for best film earlier this week as his album includes one of the stars of that film, Matt Dillon.

Derek is a semi professional artist and does a good impersonation of Elvis.