Today we’d like to introduce you to Douglas Barry.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
As a photographer, I started taking photos of custom car shows at age 8. My parents had a custom van and we went all over the midwest to these shows. By college I began to take photos of live bands and some landscape. When I moved to Nashville there was an under ground indie fashion scene here that was tied to the music scene. I began taking photos of both. That quickly led to taking runway photos of the fashion events. The fashion events became centered around Nashville Fashion Week and I took runway photos for those events. My friend Adrian had an opportunity to go to shoot runway photos at Miami Swim Week. We shot runway photos of Nashville Fashion Week and Miami Swim Week for ten years together.
My fashion design, started as a kid, I would sketch out how I wanted my clothes. My mom would make them for me. Making clothes by hand was a family talent handed down many generations. My great, great grand father was a tailor in Austria and brought his tailor shop to Chicago, Il USA in the late 1800’s. After being involved in the Nashville fashion scene, I began taking sewing lessons from my mom, which led to creating my first line of clothing. This eventually became Nashbeach. Nashbeach has been in 4 Miami Swim Week runway shows but currently has not recovered from covid.
I started playing guitar to stay focused in college and keep away from the party scene. I started looking to a higher power at this time and that is an element in all my music. The lyric ideas were always there but I did not start writing songs until about 26 years ago. My current plans are to get my best songs on my first album in the near future.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Struggles for the fashion line have been trying to find retail outlets that make sense for low runs. If you do all of it yourself, you have no way to grow and you have no way to pay the bills getting started.
Struggles for the photography are related to the industry changing so fast. As magazines become digital centric, and our society becomes more focused on social media hype, it is hard to find value in great photos.
Struggles for the songwriting are more based on a US music industry that has lost its way. We have the best tools and some amazing talent today, yet few know how to leverage that into a career that has any stability or longevity.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am an IT Senior Cloud Engineer working in healthcare. I have been working an IT day job for 23 years. Previous to this I worked in Industrial Engineering, designing automotive tooling. I have a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. I am a renaissance man and love both technology and art woven together.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Going to a Brownsville Station, Poco and Toto live concert with my mom and dad.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.stealthproductions.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stealthproductionsnet/
- Other: https://www.nashbeach.com
