Artists Registry

Barry W. Hollritt was born in Paterson, New Jersey. His first photographs were taken with a Brownie box camera that his parents let him use while staying at the Jersey shore. Little was he to know that those first New Jersey seascapes would be followed years later with landscapes, seascapes and other vistas from around the world.

It wasn’t until his college days that Barry first found photography to be in his soul. Studying European and British literature, he graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey’s largest private university, with a degree in literature. However, while studying W.B.Yeats and Shakespeare at Wroxton College in Oxfordshire, England, Barry found the camera to be his true calling. Barry sold his first photographs of the English countryside to appreciative patrons in 1974.

Beginning in 1976, he was employed by a now defunct international charter airline that took him to locales all over North America, the Middle East and Europe on a regular basis. Always carrying his beloved 35mm Topcon camera, first purchased in 1974, Barry began amassing a wonderful portfolio of faces and places that created the foundation for his future work.

Emulating one of his inspirations, the poet William Carlos Williams, who was a doctor by day and a poet by night, Barry continued to be employed as a steward in the airline industry, and later, as Marketing and Business Development Manager for Toshiba America for 13 years. By day, a successful corporate manager, by weekend and night he became a landscape, waterfowl, and nature photographer.

In 1981, Barry spent a year studying photographic science at one of the most prestigious photographic schools in the United States, the Rochester Institute of Technology located in Rochester, New York.

In 1988, Barry started exhibiting his work at local art shows and began receiving recognition and awards for his landscape and nature photographs. His first exhibit that year achieved a first-place ribbon in Photography for one image entitled “Aircraft over the Alps,” an image he refers to as an “airscape” that is still exhibited today.

Moving to a small New Jersey lakeside community in 1991, Barry truly developed a passion for waterfowl, especially the beloved swans that have become one of his trademarks. Following in the tradition of Peter Scott, the famed naturalist and waterfowl painter, Barry began concentrating on capturing images that go beyond the realm of photographs and approach what he refers to as “photographic artwork”.

In 2006, Barry moved to Cincinnati, Ohio where he continues to follow his passion of bird and travel photography, utilizing both using vintage 2 1/4 medium format cameras and state of the art digital photography to convey what his eye sees as he wanders the world. Barry is constantly aware of the fine line between his own eye and photography’s technical aspect.

"MY IDEA IS TO KEEP THE TECHNICAL ASPECT OF PHOTOGRAPHY AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE, BUT NEVER TO FORGET TO BE PREPARED FOR ANY SITUATION THAT MAY ARISE. A GOOD PHOTOGRAPHER MUST BE READY FOR THAT ONE INSTANT WHEN THE PERFECT IMAGE MAY PRESENT ITSELF. BEING THERE IS HALF THE BATTLE, THE OTHER HALF IS TO BE PREPARED!"

A lifetime member of the Trumpeter Swan Society, Barry continues to support efforts toward conservation and preservation of the wildlife he so adores and photographs. In 2000, one of Barry’s noted images, “Peacock”, received Best in Show at the prestigious Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland. In May 2002, “Golden Doorway” received Honorable Mention in the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts “Images 2002” gallery exhibition in State College, Pennsylvania. In September of 2002, Barry received awards for both “Nurturing the Newborn” and “Anglers in the Mist” at the well-known “Wings n’ Water” wildlife exhibition in Stone Harbor, New Jersey. In 2003, Barry has appeared as a guest host on the live “Shop at Home” national television network and also received the “Best in Show” award for “Anglers in the Mist” at two prestigious Art and Wildlife shows, the 3rd annual Chester, NJ Fine Art Show in northern New Jersey, and the Waterfowl Festival in Easton, Maryland, one of the largest wildlife and waterfowl venues in the country. “Nurturing the Newborn” won Best in Show in Professional Photography in May, 2004 at the prestigious “Somerset County Carving and Wildlife” show in Basking Ridge, New Jersey.

Today, Barry is concentrating on growing his portfolio of Chinese, European, British and American landscapes while working to expand his presence within the corporate fine-art marketplace and the art and photography world of New York City and beyond. Visit Barry on the World Wide Web at PhotosByBarry.com or email him at photosbybarry@yahoo.com.