J. Barry Thompson (American, b. 1948), Photograph A silver gelatin photograph, with trees in snow, initialed l.r. of mat; 10" x 10" (sight), 20" x 16" (mat size).After an introductory course in high school in New England, Barry Thomson knew by the end of his senior year that he would be a photographer. Thereafter self-taught, he began his career by doing street photography and purchased a 4x5 view-camera when he was 21, Traveling through the West, visiting Big Sur and Death Valley and hiking in the Sierras, it was ultimately the Grand Canyon, and later the Colorado Plateau that really captured his heart and imagination.Even though he loved the immensity of Western spaces, Thomson returned to Vermont in his early 30's to what is essentially a much more intimate environment. The change in the physical landscape proved pivotal in defining his photographic vision. In photographing "smaller" landscapes, the imagery also started to become more abstract, which subsequently led to an expanded idea of what constitutes a landscape.