Carrie Jones

Apr 19, 2026

MOUNT DESERT ISLAND—Walter Churchill documented the lives of Mount Desert Island High School athletes for free, game after match after meet after game, sharing the images of kids performing, striving, celebrating, and sometimes suffering losses.

Walter captured it all and he captured it with heart for almost two decades, gifting the people of Mount Desert Island his talents. No watermarks. No expectations. Just kindness.

Now, many in the community who were lucky enough to know him mourn his loss.

“My friend Walter Churchill passed away this morning, April 17, shortly after 1 a.m. in Bar Harbor, at MDI Hospital while the thunderstorm was raging. He had entered hospice care a little over 2 weeks ago, and had been at MDI Hospital since Sunday,” WDEA radio announcer and Sports Guy Chris Popper wrote. “Walter’s real name was Barry Gutradt. I’m not sure where his alter ego came from, but Water was how I was introduced to him, it was his Facebook profile, and how I referred to him 99 percent of the time.

“He died completely at peace, and comfortable. If there is such a thing as a good death, he experienced it, as he was comfortable, pain-free and not anxious,” Popper said.

Most of Mount Desert Island knew the man with the camera on the sidelines by Walter Churchill.

Like Popper said, that wasn’t his official name, but it’s what many knew Barry Gutradt by.

Walter was a man with a mission.

He told the Mount Desert Islander’s Emerson Whitney back in 2012 that he wanted to capture “one really cool” photo of each Mount Desert Island High School athlete.

“This is my way of giving back to the community where I live,” he told Whitney.

Walter gave back with cool photo after cool photo, but more than that, he was a kind presence, a stable presence, a giving and solid presence on the field and in the court and the gym as well as on the Bar Harbor Whale Watch where he explained to crew and passengers how to take really good pictures of things that live in the sea, things that swim beneath the surface of things.

“He loved what he did, taking photos. You would see him chronicling the athletic events of the MDI Trojans and in more recent years the Ellsworth Eagles as well. He just didn’t cover home games as you’d often see him on the road with the teams! He did this for 20 years!” Popper wrote.

“One can’t reminisce about MDI basketball without Walter being at the forefront of those memories. Such an incredible person and photographer and we are so grateful for all of our treasured photos,” Michelle Mensink Shaw wrote. “He’ll be remembered and missed by so many.”

Shannon Tracy wrote, “I know for my family, his memory will live on in all the pictures he took of our daughter, and I’m sure the feeling is mutual for many families. So sad to hear this news.”

Churchill was from away, but he gave his heart and his time and his love to the Mount Desert Island community. He was originally from New York City. He had a degree in fine arts (photography, of course) from Ohio University, graduating in 1969. He spent a good chunk of his life as a computer systems designer, teacher, and technical coordinator.

Then he moved to Bar Harbor in 2008, first working in the Mount Desert Island Hospital’s technical department.

He took photos of wildlife and whales. He loved the whale watch, the boats, the animals.

“Barry was incredibly passionate about photography and marine life. He loved sharing tips for taking pictures and his knowledge about whales with passengers and crew. He cared deeply for his craft, the people he worked with, and the wildlife he captured so beautifully with his camera,” the Bar Harbor Whale Watch wrote in a social media post.

“He also loved identifying humpbacks and contributing to whale research. He knew many of the whales by heart. He was an avid humpback fluke matcher!” the company continued. “Barry will be missed immensely, but we will always carry him in our hearts and will think of him when out on the water watching whales and riding on the boats he loved so much.”

He loved the kids, their parents, their grandparents, the community.

“For us, at the Whale Watch, he was iconic, a fixture, a friend, and family. We will miss him, celebrate him, and drink to him,” Richard Zack Klyver said.

A year later, he started photographing the sports events. The rest was community history documented by Walter. There is even a scholarship in his name. He received an “unsung hero” award from the high school—along with Popper— in 2018 for all the work he did, all the care he gave, all the images he gifted away to families, to kids, to the local paper.

Churchill was the kind of man who gave with his photos and with his time. He was the kind of man who always asked about how you were doing, how your family was doing, and he’d listen—truly listen—to your answers.

As former MDI student Brandon Murphy wrote in a social media post, Walter or Barry, did something amazing when he talked to you: he warmed your heart.

“I’m not sure if families realized the hours that he put in. Not only was he taking the photos, but then he would go through the hundreds of photos from each event, selecting only the best. He would then process them, sending some to me and then post them without a watermark on his own Facebook Page for families to clip, keep and repost. He would have these photos up by the next morning. No one knew when he would sleep,” Popper wrote.

In 2023, when the No. 3 MDI High School Trojan football team shut out the No. 2 Greely Rangers, 28-0 for its first ever state championship, Walter was there.

During the game, Walter was smashed into while on the sidelines while taking photos. Walter has been photographing all MDI sporting events for years. He was 81 when that happened.

The community came out, helped, visited, shoveled driveways. When some students learned that he was in hospice, they began filming videos to give to him, to send him messages, to make sure that he knew how much they cared about the man who cared so much about them.

Mount Desert Nursing Association helped him recover from that knee and hip surgery, too, and what did he do? He immediately took photos for the association at its big Chowdah Fest fundraiser in 2024.

Barry bounced back. Walter came back, the way he loved to see teams do. He took more photos, including photos at the high school this winter season; he took those photos even as his health failed. He kept giving gifts of images, of memory, of kindnesses.

In 2016, Popper wrote, “His photos chronicle the best in the MDI High School community.”

Walter’s photos did that. They did that so well, and they did even more. His photos warmed the heart of the community. They captured the heart of the community and the heart of the man who saw the community through that camera lens. He saw us. He valued us.

We also value him.

He gave us the gift of those expertly done images over and over again, moments captured and dispersed with just one goal: a cool image for every athlete.

Walter hit that goal and then did so much more.

He was an icon. He still is. He always will be. And he made those of us he saw icons, too.

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LINKS TO LEARN MORE

Remembering Walter Churchill: A Life Behind The Lens In Bar Harbor by Chris Popper.

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