I was born in 1946 and raised in Brooklyn, NY. As a child, our family went to the Catskill Mountains during the summer months so from an early age I developed an appreciation for nature and the outdoors. In the 60’s and 70’s spent countless hours in Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens where I deepened my connection to the life cycle of plants. During this time I was trying to figure out “what’s next” in my life Looking through the viewfinder and framing image after image gave me a focus I sorely needed and helped ground me to a world that I wanted to run away from.

I’m more or less self–taught . I did have a background in advertising and marketing, and getting paid to be creative on the corporate side as a Creative Director to help pay the bills was fine with me. I then had the energy to spend countless hours developing and printing in the darkroom

Edward Weston, Bret Weston, Ansel Adams, Paul Caponigro, Minor White all influenced my early work as did Georgia O”Keefe and Monet. They each had a passion for their art as well as Eros for the creative process that touches me very deeply.

A benefit of photographing in beautiful gardens whenever I travel has been developing a strong sense of which flowers I’m attracted to and which work together. My wife Mary happens to be an avid gardener and I have become a fairly good one myself, so between the two of us we’ve surrounded our home with flower gardens and converted a swimming pool into a pond with waterlilies and lotus. Many of the images in my Floraphilia and Sunflower portfolios on my website, have been taken in our gardens.

My images over the years are almost entirely of natural subjects . The need to create balance and wholeness in my life led me to photograph nature. As I get up close and personal with nature I never cease to be moved by the dynamic symmetry I find in a cactus plant, or in the veins of a leaf or in the head of a sunflower. The intricate patterns I find in natural forms bring into focus my own inner life stream and I begin to connect with something much greater than myself.

Photography is a meditation for me…. by slowing down and carefully observing the world around me, I am able to quiet the noise inside and discover the sacred in everyday life.

Website: www.barryguthertz.com

Represented: June Bateman Fine Art, NYC
http://www.junebateman.com/