Ellis (Eli) Reed (born 1946) is an American photographer and photojournalist. [1] [2] Reed was the first full-time black photographer at Magnum Agency and is the author of several books, including Beirut: City of Regrets and Black In America.
Reed was raised in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. [1] He took his first photograph at the age of 10, documenting his mother by the Christmas tree. [3] He earned a degree in illustration in 1969 from the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts, [4] but attributes his direction as a photographer to mentor Donald Greenhaus rather than to formal studies. [5] In 1982–83 he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, studying political science and urban affairs at the Kennedy School of Government. [4] [6]
Reed became a freelance photographer in 1970. [4] After photographing military conflict in Central America, he joined Magnum Photos, becoming its first full-time black member. [3] [6] While working for the San Francisco Examiner , he was a runner-up for the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for documentation of life in a public housing project. [6] [7]
While a Nieman Fellow, he made his first journey to Beirut to photograph the Lebanese Civil War; he returned there several times and was once mistaken for a militant and kidnapped. In 1988 he published Beirut: City of Regrets. [6] He also covered the 1986 Haiti coup against "Baby Doc" Duvalier, the 1989 US military action in Panama, and unrest in Zaire in 1992, [8] as well as the Million Man March and African-American life in the US. [6] His book Black in America, which also includes poetry by Reed, was published in 1997; several photographs from that project have been recognized in juried shows and exhibitions. [3] [8] [9] [10]
Reed has also worked as a still photographer for the film industry, and is a member of the Society of Motion Picture Still Photographers. [8]
In January 2005 Reed became the clinical professor of photojournalism at The University of Texas at Austin. [8] He has also taught at the Maine Photographic Workshop; the Wilson Hicks Symposium, Miami University; the Southeastern Museum of Photography, Daytona, Florida; the Smithsonian Institution; San Francisco State University; Harvard University; Boston Institute of Art; the Academy of Fine Art, San Francisco; Columbia University; Empire State College, New York; New York University; and the International Center of Photography, New York; as well as an annual photojournalism workshop for the United States Department of Defense. [8]
Reed mainly uses the Olympus E-3, E-30, and EP-1 for his work. [5] He is a Sony Global Imaging Ambassador. [5] In October 2015, Reed was invited to speak at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture as part of their "Visually Speaking" series. In January 2016, he was a keynote speaker at National Geographic Magazine 's Photography Seminar in Washington, D.C.
I am self taught but I had a wonderful mentor, Donald Greenhaus, who pointed me in the right direction I should go in. I believe that the more formal education you can receive, the better it will be for you if you have good teachers.