The purpose of the book, written by his daughter, is to preserve the paintings, photographs and supporting details of the life of Kenneth William Padley (1926 - 2006), to open his work to a wider audience and to help it gain the recognition that it richly deserves. It deals with his wildlife paintings and pencil drawings, wildlife and creative photography and sculptures. It contains over 130 reproductions in high quality full colour, presented with extensive biographical detail, historical context including commissions, artistic influences and accepted practice. "Ken tried his absolute best to teach me to draw and to understand perspective, but it was to no avail. He was however able to teach me 'to look'. My observations then are from the perspective of an observer seeing the relationship between the man and his artworks and my appreciation of some of the artworks themselves." Clare Hale Ken's minute attention to detail and a desire for absolute accuracy in his wildlife paintings ensured that every hair or feather and detail of habitat was exactly as it should be. To assume that this was merely a desire to reproduce faithfully would be to completely misunderstand. His purpose was to enhance the experience for the observer and to present the essence of the subject in a way that even the highest quality photograph at the time could not. Admirers of his paintings sometimes commented that they "look just like a photograph". This was intended as a compliment but would cause Ken considerable exasperation. The point for him was to produce an image of something that is not normally seen, or is taken for granted, and in doing so create something extraordinary from the ordinary - a technique familiar technique in the digital age. Troubled by the question often posed to Ken over the years about whether his work was or wasn't "art", he commented: "I'm not interested in whether my work is considered artistic - it's not even a phrase I like. I'm more concerned with the relationship between tonal contrast, texture and the balance of scale, mass and linear correlation. In short, the aesthetics of a picture." "The imaginative eye knows more than the eye and the lens can see". The book contains a whole chapter on Ken's time at Loughborough. It describes the background against which Ken's interest and educational role in photography progressed, enabling him to bridge, unusually, the worlds of fine art and photography in the predigital age.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Preface Acknowledgements Introduction Early Days Professional and Family Life Loughborough Paintings and Later Life Appendix: Funeral Reading Bibliography Index of Illustrations