Mayo native's journey from movie stuntman to Wedding Photographer of the Year

By Tom Gillespie

AMPUTEE and part-time stuntman Gary Barrett has been crowned Photographer of the Year at the Oscars of the Irish wedding industry - the annual weddingsonline.ie awards.

Dublin-based Gary, who was raised at Golf Course Road, Mulranny, was forced to quit Rice College in Westport during his Leaving Certificate year when he was diagnosed with bone cancer in 1991.

Four years later he had his left leg amputated due to complications after surgeries.

He got interested in photography when on chemotherapy when his doctor told him he would never be a gym instructor.

For 12 years he has been a finalist in the weddingsonline.ie awards and last month he won the category of Photographer of the Year.

As well as his photographic work, Gary, who was born in Manchester, formed www.weddingalbums.ie three years ago with his Dublin-born wife, Jill. This company won the Best Wedding Related Service category at the weddingsonline.ie awards.

The couple have two children, son Leon and daughter Abigail.

Gary, who moved to Mayo in 1983, said: “I photographed my first assignment in 1992 and the following year I had my first landscape photography exhibition at the Mulranny Heather Festival as well as photographing my first wedding.”

The year after he had his leg amputated he became a part-time stuntman and featured in such films as Saving Private Ryan in 1998, starring Tom Hanks and Matt Damon, and King Arthur in 2004, and he had the distinction of being the first amputee bus driver with Dublin Bus from 2002 to 2005.

Gary added: “I started to specialise in wedding photography in 2006 and became a full-time wedding photographer in 2009.”

He took up the story: “I always wanted to be a gym instructor. It had always been a dream of mine to own my own gym. During school I was mad into weights.

“But I was diagnosed with cancer of the bone at the age of 17 in Leaving Cert year. The doctor I was dealing with said it was going to change my life a bit.

“I told him I wanted to be a gym instructor and he asked me if there were two guys in the room, a healthy gym instructor and a not so healthy gym instructor, which one would you go for. He said I should change my mind.

“I did not know at the time that this guy knew that this leg was coming off. He actually brought me in a photography magazine and left it at the end of the bed and said I should have a look it and that I might enjoy it.

“I bought a camera. I took photographs and not one of them came out. I was frustrated. Then I had to make them come out. I started learning the technical side of things and then got into photography that way.”

Speaking about the amputation, he said: “It was my own decision in the end to take the leg off. They sent me home with it for a couple of years and then I knew it wasn’t working out so I actually asked them to take it off.

“It was basically a straight leg and I couldn’t do anything with it. I rang up the hospital in Dublin and I told them I needed to get rid of the leg.

“That was on a Thursday. The person I was talking to tried to physic me out of it and she said we can take it off on Tuesday. I said 'sound, book me in'. After that life improved.”

Gary told me how he got into film stunt work. He said: “That happened through Ottobock, the company who make prosthetic legs. While I was there with them they got a phone call from a film company looking for people with prosthetics.

“I went down for an interview in Ardmore Studios in Wicklow and they were trying to see how I would do rolling and falling and things like that.

“They sent me off on a three-week course in the UK on how to fall and roll properly.

“Then I was on their books for when film productions came to Ireland, like Braveheart, who wanted a leg hacked off.

“In Saving Private Ryan there is a scene just before Tom Hanks went deaf on the beach. I got blew up and my leg came off in the scene.”

Gary recalled how Dr. Jerry Cowley in Mulranny got him his first wedding photography job, but most importantly how he saved his life.

He explained: “Dr. Cowley was the one that knew it was cancer of the bone instantly. The x-rays were send down to him from the hospital in Castlebar and he spotted something and without getting back in touch with Castlebar, he contacted Cappagh Hospital and within days of him finding the tumour he had me there for a biopsy. I owe a lot to Dr. Cowley.”

Talking about the wedding album company, Gary said: “My wife Jill came up with the idea to start weddingalbums.ie and open it to the general public. In the past you could only order a wedding album through a photographer and the mark-up was cornered.

“It is now digital. We don’t need negatives any more. The public can send their digital files to Jill who then designs the album, sends it back to them for approval, after which it goes to print.”

* Gary Barrett Photography can be contacted on (087) 2743947, https://garybarrettphoto.com/, Instagram Gary Barrett, and https://weddingalbums.ie/.