After three years as head of chemistry in a Leicestershire school while pursuing a personal interest in photography, Barry won a scholarship in 1974 from the Royal College of Art for an MA in photography. Two years later he won the Vogue award and joined the magazine as a staff photographer. From 1977, he worked as a freelance photographer, covering international stories for magazines and newspap
ers as well as working on over twenty books. His work has been widely exhibited worldwide – including, in the UK, the V&A museum, Oxford Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of London and The Photographers Gallery. In 1981, along with seven others, he founded Network Photographers, which for over twenty years was a significant British agency, with an archive of over a million images and a critical forum for image making. Since Network closed in 2005 Barry has been working with the international agency, Getty. Barry has won several awards for his work, the most important being the World Press Oskar Barnack Award in 1991, for a photo-essay on Romania after the revolution. His work ranges from photojournalism to portraiture and he has directed over 20 documentary films, collaborating with sound artists, musicians and performers. He divides his time between London and France, collaborating with other artists, publishing his work and always striving to keep a fresh eye on the world around him.
