The first visitor in Williston Northampton School’s annual Photographer Lecture Series can trace his love of photography all the way back through his family tree—some 150 years.

Scott Barrow notes that his family began taking fun photos in the 1860s, when such a playful attitude toward the medium was still relatively rare. In his biography, Mr. Barrow adds that he spent childhood nights in the basement darkroom with his father and that those sessions sparked his own love of photography.

A decision to spend his last $150 on a Canon SLR and five rolls of Kodachrome in 1972 seems to have paid off handsomely: Mr. Barrow’s hundreds of assignments have been for clients across the range of advertising, travel, editorial, and corporate spheres. These include American Express, Charles Schwab, Citibank, Procter & Gamble, Tylenol, The Wall Street Journal, British Airways, Northwestern University, Williams College, Disney, National Geographic, NY Times Travel Publications, Scientific American, and U.S. News and World Report.

Mr. Barrow has been awarded the Communication Arts Photography Award of Excellence, Graphis Photography Annual Award, New York Art Director’s Club Award of Excellence, and PX3 Prix De La Photographie Paris, among other accolades.

“I take beautiful photographs for a living and I enjoy it,” Mr. Barrow notes in his bio. “The bigger challenge for me as an artist is to go beyond beauty and find my connection to the scene, to become part of it in the moment that I release the shutter. It is only then that I can truly share what I saw and felt with you, the viewer.”

Mr. Barrow will present the first in the 2015-16 Photographer Lecture Series on November 5 at 6:30 p.m. in the Dodge Room, Reed Campus Center. All lectures in the series are free and open to the public.