James Barker Photography
4700 Drake Street
Fairbanks, AK 99709

PHONE (907) 479-2107
Fax (907) 479-2107

E-Mail James Barker

Web Site: www.jamesbarkerphotography.com

Regular Affiliate, Affiliated with the University of Alaska Museum

Since the mid seventies I have provided professional photographic services from my studios in rural Alaska and now in Fairbanks, Alaska. I do documentary, corporate, and commercial photography, and photojournalism on location and in the studio. My major projects include a book on Eskimo subsistence, documentation of scientists in Antarctica sponsored by the National Science Foundation, and a feature for Smithsonian magazine on arctic Ice Station SHEBA.

I am a commercial photographer, photojournalist, and author skilled in documenting people who live and work in the Polar Regions under challenging conditions. I am best known for my photo essays and book on Alaska Native people, and for my photographs documenting scientific research and support staff in Antarctica. I came to Alaska in 1974 after studying at the Art Center School in Los Angeles and doing a number of years of free lance, commercial and scientific photography in the Bay area and Washington State. I live with my son, Eric, and wife, Robin, who, at times, collaborates with me as a writer.

Major Projects and Publications:

Always Getting Ready: Yup'ik Eskimo subsistence in Western Alaska. University of Washington Press, 1993. Ninety-three photographs and a 40,000-word text showing villagers in an annual cycle of subsistence activities, now in its 3rd printing.

The Long Cold Journey of Ice Station Sheba: Smithsonian Magazine, September 1998. Photographs for a feature article on scientists conducting climate change studies from an icebreaker located on the polar ice cap, 300 miles north of Alaska.

Resident Artist, Antarctica: I have been awarded two grants from the National Science Foundation in the Artists and Writers Program to document scientists and support staff in the U.S. mission in Antarctica. I spent the 1996 and 1998 seasons at U.S. stations and outlying field camps.

Curator of photography for Crossroads Alaska, 1994, Smithsonian Institute's major exhibition on Native peoples of Alaska and Siberia.

Grants and Awards:

1973 Time/Life magazine, photo essay competition, 2nd place.

1998 Time/Life Eisenstaedt Awards finalist.

A number of grants from the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the Alaska Humanities Forum.

Teaching:

Visiting Instructor of photography, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, 1987/88 and as an occasional adjunct in years since.

Major Individual Exhibits:

1995 Field Museum, Chicago

1995 Smithsonian, National Museum of American Indian, New York

1998 Museum of Arts and Sciences, San Francisco

All major Museums in Alaska