Tim Barnwell is a native of southern Appalachia, born in Bryson City in the mountains of western North Carolina. His parents were schoolteachers who graduated Western Carolina University and the family lived in several counties in the area before settling in Asheville, where Tim is currently based. He is one of the most published photographers in the South and has been a principal or contributing photographer to dozens of books. He is the author of eight of his own-The Face of Appalachia : Portraits from the Mountain Farm, On Earth’s Furrowed Brow : The Appalachian Farm in Photographs, Hands in Harmony : Traditional Crafts and Music in Appalachia, Blue Ridge Parkway Vistas : A Comprehensive Identification Guide to What you See from the Many Overlooks, Great Smoky Mountains Vistas : A Guide, with Mountain Peak Identifications, for What To See and Do in and Around the National Park, Faces and Places of Cashiers Valley, Tide Runners : Shrimping and Fishing on the Carolinas and Georgia Coast, and Jewels of the Southern Coast : Architectural Gems of Charleston, Savannah and Beyond.
His career has spanned more than 30 years as a professional photographer and photography instructor, including eight years as Executive Director of the nationally recognized Appalachian Photographic Workshops (1981-1988). As director, Tim designed, coordinated, and taught year-round workshops with staff and visiting master photographers. His images have appeared in dozens of magazines, including Time, Newsweek, House Beautiful, American Craft, Outdoor Photographer, Mother Jones, Sky and Telescope, Blue Ridge Country, Billboard, Smithsonian, Our State, Black & White Magazine, Smoky Mountain Living, Aperture, LensWork, Astronomy, and National Parks.
Tim is known as a master photographer and printer. His fine art photography is widely collected and has been included in many group and one-man shows in the US and abroad. His images are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum, Mint Museum, New Orleans Museum of Art, High Museum of Art, Greenville (SC) County Museum of Art, Mint Museum, Asheville Art Museum, SOHO Photo Gallery, Newark Museum, and Booth Western Art Museum.
Tim began photographing the people and places of southern Appalachia in the late 1970s and continues to explore the area doing portrait and landscape images of this culturally rich region.