Photographer Rick Barbero retires after 45 years with The Register-Herald – Actual WV

By Michelle James, for RealWV

Rick Barbero swears he pushed the button for the third flooring.

“I know I did,” he stated with fun. “I’d been getting off on the same floor for two years, but for some reason that day the elevator opened, and it was the second floor.”

It was August 1980 and Barbero was two weeks away from graduating from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. 

The plan was to take his images diploma and search for a newspaper job in his hometown of East Rochester, N.Y.

“I was all packed up and ready to go,” he stated. “Then that elevator stopped on the second floor.”

He was within the hallway earlier than he realized he was within the flawed place. But proper earlier than he turned to go away, one thing caught his eye.

“There was a sign on the wall that said, ‘Photographer position open at Beckley Newspaper,’” he recalled. “I was like, ‘Woah!’ and I picked up the phone to call.”

Barbero had by no means been to West Virginia, and had no concept the place Beckley was earlier than he traveled down the subsequent week to talk to former Beckley Newspapers Executive Editor Keith Walters.

When he began as a workers photographer the next week – two days after commencement – his solely actual plan was to go away the Mountain State. 

“My father was disappointed that I wasn’t coming back home after graduation,” he stated. “I remember saying, ‘Dad, how about I just go there for a year or two and then come back home?’ I told him, ‘It will be like another year or two of school, but this time I’ll be getting paid.’”

That was the plan, anyway. 

“Boy, was I wrong!” Barbero continued with fun. “If somebody had advised me again then that I’d be right here retiring 45 years later, I’d have advised them they have been loopy.

“I guess this is just where I was meant to be.”

Barbero can’t bear in mind the primary photograph he took, however he does bear in mind the day he fell in love with images. 

“My cousin Mark had a darkroom in his basement, and he took me down to see it,” he recalled. “I said, ‘Oh, wow. This is really cool.’”

He was conversant in the idea of a darkroom however had by no means seen one in particular person. When Mark turned the sunshine off and commenced processing a photograph, Barbero stated his life modified. 

“He’s got this white piece of paper and he sticks it in this chemical and starts swishing it around and here comes this image,” he stated. “I used to be simply watching as he moved it from one tray to the subsequent and you could possibly simply see this picture type. To me, it was magical and one thing inside me simply sparked. 

“From that moment, it kicked in and I remember saying, “This is what I want to do,”

Barbero was a freshman in highschool when his dad purchased him a equipment that he used to create a makeshift darkroom within the household’s solely toilet. 

“I tried to do it when no one was around,” he stated with fun. “But it was the best place for it. There weren’t any windows, and I put towels under the door so no light would leak in.”

He wasn’t actually involved about taking good pictures at that time. He simply loved the method.

The subsequent 12 months, as his curiosity in images deepened, his greatest good friend’s father constructed a darkroom within the basement of their households’ shared duplex. 

By the time his junior 12 months rolled round, he determined it was time to study from an expert. 

“I had gotten beyond that initial excitement, and decided I wanted to get more serious about learning how to take good photos,” he stated. “That’s when I learned how to compose and frame and properly expose a photo.”

Barbero knew some type of images was his future, but it surely wasn’t till he began on the Art Institute of Pittsburgh that he found photojournalism. 

“I started taking photos all over town at baseball and football games and other special events,” he recalled. “But I knew for sure I wanted to work at a newspaper when I took a photo of a house explosion.”

Barbero snapped what he believed could possibly be the most effective photograph of his younger profession. 

“I got back to my house, processed the image and sure enough, I had this awesome picture of the house fully engulfed in flames,” he stated. “I was so excited that I decided to take it to The Pittsburgh Press to see if they could use it.”

The subsequent morning, he stated he ran a half mile to the closest newsstand in hopes of seeing his photograph in print. 

“And there it was on the front, all the way across the top of the page,” he stated, nonetheless in awe greater than 45 years later. “And it was like, ‘I did that. I took that photo. I created that and now everybody in Pittsburgh is going to see my photo with my name on it.’”

Though Barbero had solely identified Beckley existed for 2 weeks previous to his transfer, he stated there was little doubt he had accomplished the proper factor. 

“I was miserable that first day though,” he stated with fun. “It was the loneliest day of my life.”

His mother and father drove from Pittsburgh to Beckley with him the day he graduated. When they went dwelling the subsequent morning, Barbero determined to discover his new city. 

“I didn’t know anyone, so I went downtown,’” he recalled. “I parked my automobile and walked from Neville Street to Main Street, appeared round and stated, ‘Where’s the remainder of it?’

“I was 20 years old and had always lived in a big city,” he continued. “It was an adjustment.”

The subsequent day, his first on the job, wasn’t fairly as lonely.

“I shot 12 assignments,” he stated. “I can’t bear in mind all of them, however I bear in mind taking pictures a canine present at 5 p.m. at New River Park and I do know I ended my day at a band competition at what was then Park Junior High.

“It was a long day, but I remember Keith Walters telling me I had done a great job, so it was a good day.”

Barbero stated he seems again on most days on the job as “good days.” And generally, he stated, there have been days when he was satisfied he may not make it out alive.

He hadn’t been on the job lengthy when he was despatched to the UMWA Headquarters in Beckley to get photos of hanging miners. 

“I hadn’t been around a strike before, so I had no idea how intense that was,” he stated. “So, I get out of my car at the headquarters, and I’m taking a few pictures when a guy comes over and tells me to get my camera out of there right now.”

Determined to get a shot, he moved throughout the road and out of hurt’s approach.

“But the guy saw me and yelled, ‘Buddy, if you don’t want that camera to be part of your face, you better get your ass out of here,” he recalled. “There were miners with baseball bats in their hands and balls and chains, so I wasn’t going to argue.”

Ultimately, nonetheless, he determined he was extra afraid of returning and not using a photograph than of what the miners may do to him, so he discovered a close-by hill with a transparent view of the scene.

Back on the paper, the 20-year-old who had only in the near past celebrated seeing his photograph credit score in print, begged his editor to go away his identify out of the newspaper. 

“But he ran it,” Barbero stated with fun. “And later that night, he called me and said I needed to go back out to the scene because the guards were taking pot shots at the miners.”

That time, he stated, the lads welcomed him into the fold.

“They wanted me to show what was going on then,” he stated. “And I got some really good images that night.”

Barbero’s plan to go away West Virginia after a 12 months or two shifted shortly, as he met his former spouse simply three months after his arrival and married the subsequent summer season. 

In 1983, simply as he was named chief photographer, the couple welcomed their daughter Shannon. Their son Brandon was born in 1986. 

“By then I knew I really wasn’t going to leave Beckley,” he stated. 

He did, nonetheless, come fairly near leaving the newspaper when members of his former church started criticizing a number of the locations and occasions he was required to {photograph}. 

“And it got to the point that it was weighing very heavily on me,” he stated. “I just wanted to do right by God, and I was worried that I wasn’t.”

His battle, he stated, turned so intense that he was able to take a job driving a potato chip truck.

“It was offered to me, and I was two weeks away from taking it,” he stated. “But then I used to be at church one Sunday and one of many church members came to visit, put his hand on my head and prayed for me. After church was over, he came to visit and stated, “’Rick, I don’t know what it’s, however the Spirit advised me to inform you to not go.’

“I was ready to give everything up, but when he told me that, I really felt this sense of relief like, ‘OK. This is going to be all right.”

Barbero stated he hasn’t questioned his profession selection since that day.

“I absolutely know I made the right decision,” he stated, reflecting on his profession, throughout which, amongst different honors, he acquired 37 1^st place awards from the West Virginia Press Association and was named West Virginia AP Photographer of the Year. He additionally was named CNHI Photographer of the Year twice and acquired the identical honor for greatest videographer 3 times. 

“I’ve photographed seven U.S. Presidents, multiple celebrities and professional athletes,” he stated. “I’ve gone to the top of the Green Bank Telescope, crawled through caves and gone underground in the mines and walked the catwalk under the (New River) Gorge Bridge.”

He’s taken pictures of individuals at their happiest – celebrating birthdays and milestones – and other people at their worst. 

“I’ll never forget UBB,” he stated of the 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine explosion that claimed the lives of 29 males. “You don’t forget things like that. That sadness. I felt those families’ grief from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, and I cried with them.”

He stated he’s all the time tried his greatest to deal with every particular person and every occasion he covers as if they’re a very powerful issues he’ll ever {photograph}. 

“It’s important to the people we cover and so it should be important to us,” he stated. 

Barbero nonetheless loves images. He nonetheless loves venturing out locally and telling tales together with his digital camera. 

But at 65, he stated he’s prepared for different issues, too. 

“I have three grandchildren, Kaleb, who they call Chev, is 15, Gemma is 12, and Lucca is 2,” he stated. “They’re my life. I simply need to have the ability to spend extra time with them, play golf, camp, fish and journey.

“It’s just time.”

He’s stepping away from newspaper, however not from images. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever do that,” he stated. “I’ll always have a camera with me.”

He stated he generally thinks again to the circumstances that led him to the place he’s immediately – to that day on the elevator and that Sunday in church.

“I don’t know what would have happened if that elevator hadn’t stopped on the second floor,” he stated. “Or if that man hadn’t prayed for me that day. I could possibly be retiring from driving a potato chip truck. 

“All these little things that led me here,” he stated. “I actually assume God had a plan for me.

“It’s almost like I was destined to be here.”