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Window on the Past | David F. Barry: The Irish ‘Shadow Catcher’

He was called the “Little Shadow Catcher” by the Indians, due to his 5’ 5” height and his miraculous ability to capture images on paper. Some whites called Barry the “Sioux Charmer,” due to his friendly relations with many Natives, especially those of historical and topical importance.

In the remote 19th-century settings where photographer David F. Barry operated, photographs were like magic – only more compelling emotionally, as they transposed the human form onto paper. Though he made many pictures of forts, battlefields and various white people on the Western frontier, Barry is best-known for his photographs of Native Americans. 

The Lakota tribe bestowed on him the nickname “Little Shadow Catcher,” which conveys both Barry’s short stature and the deftness with which his images captured the pride and defiance but also the acute sense of pain that encompassed so much of Native American life in that era.

Barry was born in the upstate New York village Honeoye Falls on Mar. 6, 1854. Both parents were Irish immigrants: His father, Edmund Barry, was born in 1824 in Killarney, County Kerry. And his mother, Bridget Brophy Barry, was born in 1835 in County Kerry. 

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