THEY SAY a picture can tell a story better than a thousand words. If that’s the case then Dunlavin photgrapher Dave Barrett is a story teller at the top of his game. This genial gent from west Wicklow is recognised the length and breadth of the county. Most weekends will see him prowling the sidelines of GAA pitches armed with bazooka-style cameras and a cheeky grin or taking aesthetic glimpses from community days or sensational snaps of sugary ladies at race meetings or elsewhere.
But besides the hard work that goes into capturing the essence of Irish rural life, be it sporting or fashion, Dave also manages a very popular website www.davbar.com that has enjoyed over 34,000 visitors in the last 12 months.
“I set up the website in 2005 for the simple reason that I was taking pictures at local events and only two or three were making it into a paper,” says Dave “and people were saying to me ‘what are you doing with the rest of the pictures?’ I set it up as well in response to so many requests to see images of events that weren’t in the paper. I chose the name Davbar because it would be a unique name and would have a high ranking in the search engines,” he says.
Dave’s most popular photos are by far of local events in west Wicklow and Wicklow GAA. His GAA pictures were in such high demand that recently he was forced to set up another website, www.wicklowgaaphotos.com to cater for the rush of people seeking to view images of games in the county the weekend after they took place. And most pleasing of all to Dave is that the visitors to his sites are not just Wicklow people but from every corner of the globe.
“I’ve had visitors from over 39 different countries in the last year alone,” said a proud Dave, “from Azerbaijan to Vietnam and from Australia to Alaska people have logged on and viewed the pictures. I don’t know if they are people on holidays just keeping an eye on happenings or whether it’s people browsing the net and finding the site but they are all welcome,” he adds.
He first picked up a camera when he was seven and has been photographing life ever since. Growing up outside Dunlavin it was written in the stars that he would be involved to some extent in GAA and while he may never have donned the county jersey as a player, he has certainly been present at almost every game they have played in recent times.
He has captured the pain and physical torture of training in the depths of winter under Mick O’Dwyer to the joy and jubilation of the county’s Tommy Murphy Cup win and their first-ever Championship win in Croke Park against Kildare this year.
The Dunlavin native’s photographic career includes some memorable highlights. “My best memories would have to include being in Paris for Lance Armstrong’s last race and 7th win in the 2005 Tour De France. This involved standing in the serious heat in the same spot on the Champs-Elysée for five hours to get close to the action and being afraid to leave my spot in case it was gone when I got back.
Then there was Arsenal’s last match at Highbury which involved sticking the camera up the jumper and running, and being at the Offaly hurling matches in 1998 when there were pitch invasions and protests, and of course Wicklow’s journey under Micko,” he recalls fondly.
With Dave giving so much of his time to his passion for photography where does he find time for home life?
“I am blessed to be in a house of women,” he says cheekily “I have a very patient wife and we have created a visa system. When I need to go somewhere at the weekend I have to first apply for a visa on the Wednesday. Antoinette will then review my application and the visa will come back stamped with approved or otherwise,” he jokes.
“I also have two beautiful daughters, Amy is seven and Sophie is four and Amy is showing the most interest in photography at the moment,” he adds.
Besides the huge number of visitors to the davbar site there are also figures that testify to how much navigation there is on the website.
Over 346,000 page hits were recorded in the last year leading Dave to be not only recognised but at times even pursued as people search for pictures of their events.
“If I turn up somewhere without the camera I’ll always be asked ‘where’s the camera?’ Recently I was taking photos at a Tinahely match and the photos weren’t up on the website a week later because I was away. I got an unidentified text from a Tinahely man wondering if I was on holidays because he didn’t see the photos and all the lads were asking him when they would be up,” he said.
So to view your club, your team, your fantasy woman at the races or your local event there’s no easier way than logging onto www.daybar.com.
