Barry Broman
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Barry Michael Broman has led one of the more unusual careers to intersect with publishing and photography. He first arrived in Asia in 1962 as a teenage photographer for the Associated Press, covering Thailand, Cambodia, and South Vietnam before serving as a Marine Corps infantry officer in Vietnam. He went on to a 26-year career in the CIA with postings in Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, France and Myanmar, retiring in 1996 and returning to writing and photography. During his time with the State Department and CIA, he twice served as chief of station, including in Rangoon, Burma, which became the subject of much of his later creative work.
Since retirement, Broman has become a prolific author and photographer of Southeast Asia. He has written and photographed more than 14 books since retiring, nearly all on Asia subjects, mostly dealing with Burma, Thailand, and Cambodia. Among these is "Bagan: Temples and Monuments of Ancient Burma," in which Broman captured the timeless nature of Bagan in a series of 80 colour photographs taken during the last decade. He has also produced documentary films, including one on Burma, and has written memoirs and spy novels drawing on his intelligence career.
Broman's reputation rests on his rare dual identity as both a seasoned intelligence professional and a dedicated documentary photographer of Burma during a period when the country was largely closed to outside observers. His long, repeated access to Myanmar—as one who knows Myanmar well, documenting its people, culture and land with a sensitive photographer's eye—lends his images of Bagan's temples particular historical and documentary value, especially as records of sites later affected by earthquakes and restoration.
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