Eli Reed
Born in Linden, New Jersey in 1946, Eli Reed was raised in neighboring Perth Amboy. As a boy, Reed discovered his love for documentation when he began playing with a camera and snapped his first photo at the age of ten. From then on, his curiosity bloomed and while he was primarily self-taught, he also credits Donald Greenhaus (New York photographer and instructor) as one of his most impactful mentors. As a young adult, Reed went on to study visual illustration at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts, graduating in 1969, and began his career in 1970 as a freelance photographer. During this time, he worked nights as a hospital orderly where he became interested in the study of human character, an experience which later inspired his work as a documentarian.
Reed’s freelance work included photography and journalism assignments at The Middletown Times Herald Record in upstate New York, The Detroit News, and The San Francisco Examiner. In addition, he has also worked for publications including National Geographic, Life, Time, People Magazine, Newsweek, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, and more. His work at the Examiner led him to be runner-up for a Pulitzer Prize in 1981. Soon after, in 1982-1983, Reed was a Neiman Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in political science, urban affairs and Central America. His years of freelance photography caught the attention of Magnum Photos and in 1983, Reed was nominated to the Magnum Photos agency. In 1988, Reed was granted full membership becoming the first African American to achieve this designation at Magnum Photos. That same year, Reed photographed the detrimental effects of poverty on American children for a film narrated by Maya Angelou called Poorest in the Land of Plenty and continued to work as a stills and specials photographer on major movies with directors such as John Singleton, Robert Townsend, Spike Lee, and Robert Altman, before he began to create documentaries of his own. His documentary Getting Out was exhibited at the 1993 New York Film Festival and was honored by the 1996 Black Film-makers Hall of Fame International Film and Video Competition.
Eli Reed’s international photojournalism work provided him the opportunity to travel the globe gaining access to locations and witnessing events first-hand that most of us will only ever see in photos. His documentary work took him to: Beirut (1983-1987) which later became his first book, Beirut, City of Regrets; various conflicts around Central America; war in Lebanon (1983-1987); a coup against “Baby Doc” Duvalier in Haiti (1986); the U.S. military involvement in Panama (1989); the Walled City in Hong Kong; and his notorious documentation of the African American experience spanning more than twenty years.
Reed's work has spanned three decades of documentation and bearing witness to themes of war, society, social justice, race, gender, and life in America and around the globe. His book, Black in America (1997), includes images from the 1970s to the late 1990s, and depicts both significant historical moments as well as the seemingly mundane, everyday life and basic routine of American society. Black in America includes moments captured during the Crown Heights riots, the Los Angeles riots, the Million Man March, as well as images casting light on the human side of homelessness, teen pregnancy, sex-workers, football games, and children at play.
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In 2020, Reed's lengthy documentary career culminated in his acclaimed photographic depiction of the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis and his funeral in Houston, TX. The following year, in 2021, he was awarded the I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Reed has been a Clinical Professor of Journalism at the University of Texas, Austin since 2005.