The Most Talented People I Know, Part 1

I've decided that I know a good many talented people, and I thought that I would brag on them a little. These will be random posts that I write as different people come to mind. I have several in mind right now, so you may get a little sick of this, but it's my blog, so I guess you'll just have to deal! ha!

James Edward Bates: Photojournalist

I met Jamie the year I interned at FBC Gulfport, Mississippi. Jamie was a photojournalist for the local paper and would help with youth events from time to time. Always friendly, but very shy, it took me a while to get to know him, but I’m glad I had the opportunity. During a phone conversation one time, Jamie asked me where I grew up. I said Crowley, LA, thinking that he’d have no clue where that was, but he responded by saying that he’d been around there a few weeks before. Perplexed, I asked him WHY and he said that he’d been at a Klan rally outside Crowley. I simply said “Oh,” not knowing what to think—Jamie is a member of the Ku Klux Klan?! But he quickly explained that he’d been working on a collection chronicling the activity of the Klan in the modern south. A few months later, he showed a slideshow containing his work from the Klan collection as well as other significant photographs he’d taken and I was hooked. Jamie is one of the most talented photographers I’ve ever known. His pictures tell a story and they tell it well. The following is a biography (from zReportage.com) summarizing his talent and renown.

James Edward Bates grew up in south Mississippi. He considers renowned civil-rights photojournalist Charles Moore to be his mentor; Moore's reportage of the civil-rights movement in the 1960s is attributed to shifting the national mood in favor of equality for all Americans. Bates documents the Ku Klux Klan and other groups honestly, recording their words and actions accurately, as they exist before his camera. His seven-year reportage of the Ku Klux Klan featured among hanging exhibits at the prestigious international festival of photojournalism in Perpignan, France: Visa Pour L'image, 2003. It is part of the traveling and permanent exhibits for the Middle Passage and African American History Museum and will exhibit at the St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art, which is part of the prestigious Glasgow Museums family, from November 2005 to April 2006. Bates' photography appeared in Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster's In Search of America. He has been published U.S. News and World Report, Newsweek, American Photo, People, Rolling Stone, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald and many other national and international newspapers and magazines.

Click here to see a slideshow containing some of his KKK collection photographs

What gets me is that, while they look like they could be images from the 40’s or 50’s, all of these pictures have been taken in the last 8 years or so! My favorite picture isn’t in this collection, but even now—five years later—I can see it clearly in my mind’s eye.

In my search for Jamie’s work online, I came across another site containing his work—this one quite different from the first. Apparently, he’s a wedding photographer as well. I think that’s neat because I have said for a while that, if I ever get married, I would LOVE for Jamie to be the photographer! Now he has a business, I just need to find a groom! ;) I hope these sites give you a glimpse into the heart of this talented man.