Barry Z Levine

b.1943 - d.2024

Barry Z Levine was the still photographer on the Academy Award Winning Film, "Woodstock". His photographs have been included in many documentary films and books about the Woodstock Festival. Nearly 300 of his own color photographs are featured in his book, "The Woodstock Story Book." His work is also featured in the collectible editions, "Woodstock: Three Days that Rocked the World," "Woodstock Remembered," and "Woodstock ‘69: The First Festival".

Barry's photographs have also been featured in international newspapers and magazines and his art prints of performers and the festival were a large part of an international tour of museum shows and art galleries that visited New York City, Santa Fe, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Rome, Athens, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Milan and Bologna.

Barry was honored in Italy by Biografilms for his life work. As the featured photographer at their 2009 film festival celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock, his photos were on buses, trolleys and billboards in Rome, Bologna, and Milan, and toured 70 Feltrenelli bookstores throughout Italy.

Barry has appeared worldwide in several documentary films and interviews related to Woodstock. In addition, he has given talks and photograph illustrated lectures on Woodstock at theaters, libraries, museums and galleries. He brought a unique perspective to the famous festival since he had worked for many years in production in the record industry for Columbia, Warners, Atlantic, RCA and A&M.

He worked closely with Michael Wadleigh, the director of of the 1969 festival documentary film, providing him with information on the groups, their stage acts and hit songs in planning what to shoot. He was there from the building of the stage and infrastructure to the bitter end at the garbage strewn empty field. His aerial photographs show the entire crowd of 500,000. He also was present in New York City during the preliminary editing and in Los Angeles for the finish.

In addition to photography, for many years, he operated a New York City advertising agency specializing in entertainment clients, and he has worked as a writer/producer in advertising and film, video, and theatrical productions. He was the director of a video production studio in New York City.

He has long been an independent political activist and helped to establish independent politics nationally as well as New York's third largest political party, the Independence Party. He is one of the founders of The All-Stars Project, one of the largest and most successful international anti-violence programs for urban youth.

He has one daughter, who works in Los Angeles in independent animated film production. Sadly, Barry passed away in June, 2024.