Bill Barrett
Position
Professor; Director of the May Gallery
Department
Electronic and Photographic Media
Home Campus
St. Louis (Webster Groves)
Courses taught
Digital Photo Imaging, International Photojournalism, Professional Development in Photography, Professional Gallery Management, Photo I, Ethics in the Media
Education
MA, Media Studies, The New School for Social Research; Instituto Juan XXIII in Lima, Peru; Medieval Studies, St. Bonaventure University; BA in Psychology, St. Meinrad College
Professional Experience
Parsons School of Design, Department of Photography full-time faculty and assistant chair; Eugene Lang College, adjunct faculty; The New School, faculty member
A freelance documentary photographer since 1978, Barett has published and exhibited widely. In her biography Love is the Measure by Jim Forest, Dorothy Day was reported to say that Bill Barrett was one of the few photographers who didn't make her nervous.
Teaching Philosophy
Teaching the technical part of photography, while absolutely essential, is in many ways the easier part. The real challenge, the one that keeps me excited, is to draw out students' interesting ideas, to help them express those ideas through the photographic medium, and to combine technical excellence with creative expression. Achieving that goal is successful photographic education, and produces students who can love what they do and can earn their living doing it.
About
Bill Barrett thinks he has the best job in the world, to keep learning. That's important in a field like photography, which hasn't stopped changing since it was invented, but in which change seems to be accelerating daily.
He spent a great deal of time in Central American refugee camps in the 1980s, and even got to teach basic photography there with a tent for a darkroom.
Web site
470 East Lockwood Avenue