Eluned M. Demarest, an award-winning professional photographer whose career spanned more than 50 years and included photographs taken around the globe, died Jan.28 of cardio-pulmonary arrest Beth Israel –Deaconess Hospital in Needham. She was 85.
Known professionally as Lynn McLaren, she moved to the Boston area in 1968 during a freelance career that included working in Spain, Germany, the Czech. Republic, India, Nepal, Tanzania, Hong Kong, Haiti and many other countries.
She authored and photographed three pictorial-essay books: Berlin and the Berliners – a study of the city, The Village – The People, about life in an Indian village for which she was given an award of merit by the government of India and recognized by the U.S. Peace Corps. She was also the author and photographer for Ebb Tide—Flood Tide, a pictorial journey through the South Carolina low country.
Her specialties were photo-journalism, travel coverage, environmental portraiture, location photography for annual reports and magazine assignments. She was a well-regarded portrait photographer and had a particular interest in photographing people occupying doorways in a variety of cultures and settings. Her affection for photographing desolate and aging New England barns went back many years.
In 2006, the Smithsonian Institution accepted several thousand of her photographs taken in East Africa and India. They were made part of the permanent archives of the Lynn McLaren collection at the National African Art Museum and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.
Her clients included National Geographic, the Rockefeller Foundation, The New York Times, Newsweek, and Time-Life Books. She published articles in Design Magazine, Yankee Magazine and Natural History Magazine and contributed photography to A Book for Boston. Other clients included IBM, United Brands, Hart-Carter America, Johnson & Johnson, Tufts University School of Medicine, Harvard University and New England Baptist Hospital.
She was a member, former President and founder of the New England Chapter of the American Society of Magazine Photographers, and a member of the Society of Women Geographers and the Overseas Press Association. She exhibited her photographs at the United Nations and had one-woman shows at numerous locations in the U.S. and abroad.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., she was a graduate of Vassar College and Missouri School of Photojournalism.
Her marriage to the late John Y. Millar ended in divorce.
Her second husband, William Demarest, died in 1996.
Survivors include one daughter, Gwendolen Phillips of New York City, two sons, David Millar of Washington, D.C. and Bruce Millar of Bethesda, Md., a stepson, David Demarest of San Rafael, Calif.; and five grandchildren.
A Memorial Service will be held in the Eaton Funeral Home 1351 Highland Ave, Needham on Tuesday, February 5th at 2:00 PM. Relatives and friends are kindly invited to attend. Interment private. In lieu of flowers donations in Lynn’s name may be made to Boston Athenaeum, 10 ½ Beacon St., Boston AM 02108.