Barry Lewis

After 3 years as head of chemistry in a Leicestershire school while pursuing a personal interest in photography, I won a scholarship in 1974 from the Royal College of Art for an MA in photography. Two years later I won the Vogue award and joined the magazine as a staff photographer.
From 1977, I worked as a freelance photographer, covering international stories for magazines and newspapers as well as working on over twenty books. My 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, Wellcome Trust, Turner Gallery.
In 1981, along with seven others, I founded Network Photographers, which for over 20 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 I have been working with the international agency, Getty.
I have won several awards for my work, the most important being the World Press Oskar Barnack Award in 1991, for a photo-essay on Romania after the revolution. My work ranges from photojournalism to portraiture and I have directed over 20 documentary films, collaborating with sound artists, musicians and performers.
I collaborate with other artists, publish my work in books and strive to keep a fresh eye on the world around me.