PerthNorg

Bubbles no trouble for Chris

 

This award-winning image looks uncomfortable, but the medical procedure involved is relatively painless.

It shows silicon oil bubbles in the anterior chamber of a patient’s eye: the oil has raised the retina, which had dropped and caused problems with vision.

The photograph has meant yet another award for one of WA’s most decorated photographers.

Chris Barry, the ophthalmic photographer at the Lions Eye Institute in Nedlands, won the Scientific Exhibition Prize at the

American

Academy of Ophthalmology’s annual meeting in

New Orleans last month.

Around 10,000 ophthalmologists from around the world attended the meeting.

“It’s a highly coveted award and I’m proud to receive it,” Chris says.

Chris’ AAO win comes after he won Best of Show earlier this year at the annual meeting of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.

“Each year the Society have a photo competition for all ophthalmic personnel,” says Chris.Chris is no stranger to photographic success: in 2004, 2005 and 2006 he’s won the Australian Professional Photographer of the Year for Science and Nature for photos taken at the Institute.As a photographer at the Institute, he sees all unusual medical cases from

Western Australia and neighbouring countries where part of the evaluation may include imaging.“The Lions Eye Institute is a centre where people are sent who may have very different eye conditions requiring advanced medical and surgical treatments,” he says.Part of that advanced treatment is ophthalmic photography, which dates to the mid-1960s with the early use of cameras to look inside the eye.“Now there are a range of new technologies using lasers and microscopes to look at various elements of this wonderful organ that we rely on so much,” Chris says.“Although these instruments are used to diagnose and help treat many problems, the images they produce have artistic elements in design, form and colour and have creative merit in their own right.“The eye is the means of our perception of our beautiful world. We look at other peoples eyes to share there joy of life with them. Yet in its own way, the eye has intrinsic beauty in its structure, form and aesthetics.Chris has become well known worldwide for his images that grace many textbooks and are frequently used in lectures and educational material.