Barrie Ward 1934 - 2004

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Barrie Ward's Walkley award winning photograph. (Courtesy the Walkley Foundation. Click on image to enlarge.)

Born in Sydney in 1934, Barrie Ward was a press photographer whose sense of adventure defined him. He went to school in Ryde, Sydney and left at age fifteen to become a copy boy at The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), subsequently gaining a cadetship. He did national service in 1952 with the RAAF, returned to the SMH, worked overseas on Canadian newspapers and then came back to work on the Illawarra Mercury. He soon became a staff photographer on the Sydney Daily Mirror, where he spent much of his professional life. The range of his work throughout his career was immense; he photographed the Queen in Australia on her first tour, Pope Paul VI at St Mary's Cathedral, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Leo McKern on a Queensland mountain and the Beatles during their 1964 tour of Australia, to mention but a few.

Known for his great charm, Ward used it to significant advantage on many occasions, including an assignment to photograph Paul McCartney on his 22nd birthday. Sometimes his charm failed him; such as the occasion when he encountered Jackie Onassis at a US airport and asked if he could take her picture. Her response was colourful – Ward claimed he had never heard such language from a woman!

But on other occasions, it led to award winning photography. In 1969, Ward was at Long Bay jail on assignment when he heard the cry of a baby. Discovering that the child had been born to a prisoner, he then persuaded officials to let him photograph mother and child, with a prison officer. The picture won a Walkley award at a time when there was only one prize category for photographers.

Ward took a leave of absence from newspapers to be the official war photographer for the RAAF in Vietnam. He took a gunner's course to get closer to the action and many of his photos are kept in the collection at the Australian War Memorial. One photo in particular became a source of controversy as recently as 2012 when the Department of Veterans' Affairs altered the photo for a Remembrance Day poster and calendar.

The photo shows a man wearing a flight suit, with the surname Williams sewn on his chest. He is hoisting a bottle over an injured digger being borne on a stretcher by three army medics at Nui Dat forward detachment. With a lit cigarette in his right hand, this older man's eyes are fixed on the injured digger. In the background, an Iroquois helicopter is riddled with bullet holes. The Department of Veterans' Affairs altered the image by removing the name and the cigarette, and changing the identity of the person in the photo. In so doing, the Department of Veterans' Affairs created two years of drama for the man depicted, as he fought to have his identity reinstated.

Ward returned to the Mirror after the war where he went on to cover news and events , including most Olympic and Commonwealth games until 1990. He had a stint as picture editor of The Australian and as the interstate editor for the News group. He was a president of the Sydney Journalists' Club and of the Australian War Correspondents' Association. He passed away in 2004.

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