142 SIDELINES FEBRUARY 2014
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
and shot portraits for global companies including JCPenny,
Montgomery Ward, J. Walter Thompson Ad Agency and several
others.
Being a commercial photographer was a challenging,
stressful job. Before the digital age, photographs were
shot in large format film, demanding precision and massive
equipment. Each size photograph required a specialized
camera designed to shoot photos of the selected size.
“It took two people to move the cameras and you needed a tripod
to hold it up,” he reminisced. “Each photograph was carefully
calculated and if the image did not come out well, the shot had to
be taken again.”
He continued, “That is where I really developed my eye. I
learned to be a professional photographer on the job doing work
for the biggest companies in the world.”
As photography evolved and the 35mm camera was released,
Barry remembers thinking, “How am I going to take 36 pictures? A
few decades later, the digital age emerged allowing photographers
to take thousands of photos in one day.”
“Going from that (large format film) to digital and having the
ability to correct the image, [photography] is a piece of cake,” he
said. “If something was wrong with the photo back then, I had to
reshoot it. Now in Photoshop, I can click, click and it’s fixed.”
By Katie Navarra
Barry Koster’s career as an artist could have been over before
it even began. An elementary school teacher nearly failed him
because he had “poor art skills.” Not willing to accept this fate for
her son, Barry’s mother marched into a store and purchased a
pad of paper and pastels – determined to improve Barry’s skills.
“She [regularly] dropped me off at the museum and I would stay
for hours and draw pictures of statues,” he said.
Little did that elementary school teacher know, her criticism
would ignite a lifelong passion and a professional career for her
young student.
Throughout his youth, Barry developed his skills as an artist,
spending much of his time drawing and painting. On his 10th
birthday, his cousin gave him a camera, inspiring a passion for
photography. “It floored me because, until then, I had never been
treated like an adult and this made me feel like an adult,” he said.
Every surface had potential as a canvas. He once removed the
glass door from his mother’s shower, placed a perfume bottle on it
and photographed the display. He later used the piece during an
interview with Avon cosmetics and was hired on the spot.
The Evolution of Photography
As an adult, Barry worked as a commercial photographer
e
Art & Photography
An Unlikely Artist
A Barry Koster photograph: “Cross-country in daybreaks morning mist.”
Continued on page 144
