After an introductory course in high school in New England, Barry Thomson (1948- ) knew by the end of his senior year that he would be a photographer. Thereafter self-taught, he began his career by doing street photography and purchased a 4x5 view-camera when he was 21, Traveling through the West, visiting Big Sur and Death Valley and hiking in the Sierras, it was ultimately the Grand Canyon, and later the Colorado Plateau that really captured his heart and imagination.

Even though he loved the immensity of Western spaces, Thomson returned to Vermont in his early 30's to what is essentially a much more intimate environment. The change in the physical landscape proved pivotal in defining his photographic vision. In photographing "smaller" landscapes, the imagery also started to become more abstract, which subsequently led to an expanded idea of what constitutes a landscape.

Thomson worked with film in 4x5 and 2 1/4 formats and hand-printed all his work in a darkroom.

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA
Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ
Cornell Fine Arts Center, Winter Park, FL
Desert Botanical Gardens, Phoenix, AZ
Fleming Museum, Burlington, VT

Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Garden, San Marino, CA
Maitland Art Center, Maitland, FL
Minneapolis Institute of Art, WI
Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, AZ
National Park Service, Grand Canyon, AZ
Scottsdale Center for the Arts, Scottsdale, AZ
Sheldon Memorial Art Museum, Lincoln, NE
Spencer Art Museum, Lawrence, KS
St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Art, FL

J. Barry Thomson - Cactus Detail