John’s eye for empathy coupled with his talent as a photographer allowed him to simultaneously show respect for his subjects while getting ‘the shot’ he came for. Covering riots from the South Bronx to the Deep South, he learned how to work on the fly, and even came up with an innovative safety solution – vinegar-soaked cotton balls in each nostril – that allowed him to work through the tumultuous conditions without wearing a gas mask, which would have compromised his ability to see through his camera lens.
A few years later at just 20 years old, John joined Look magazine as a staff photographer. The second-youngest photographer hired by Look to date (after Stanley Kubrick), John continued to craft his career around photographing history, covering marches, race riots, and the funeral of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for Look and later Life magazine.
Notably, John’s relationship with Scholastic continued long after high school. He took all of the photos that illustrate the Scholastic Black Literature Series anthology book, The Black Hero, which was widely distributed in education markets throughout the country during the 1970s. Thousands of American 10th graders saw and learned from his photos.
