Jamel Shabazz

At age nine, Jamel Shabazz was introduced to photography by his father, who kept a signed copy of Leonard Freed’s Black in White America on the family’s coffee table. Intrigued by Freed’s provocative images of both Southern and urban life, Shabazz knew then it was his calling to document his community and the people who gave it life.

Having worked as a corrections officer in New York City for twenty years, Shabazz has witnessed the worst in humanity, yet he remains a humanist dedicated to preserving the legacy of our time, shooting with an eye for the future while preserving the present as a document of our collective past. Seconds of My Life delves deeply into the artist’s archives, going back over 25 years and spanning the globe in its representation of human life. Whether in the hills of Jamaica or the shantytowns of Brazil, among the immigrants in France or the Buddhist monks of Bangkok, Shabazz seeks out strong personalities from all races, ethnicities, nationalities, genders, sexualities, and class backgrounds. Shabazz appreciates the poise and confidence of people in all their luminous variety.

Jamel Shabazz’s work has appeared in publications such as The Source, Vibe, Trace, British Elle, Jalouse, Dune, GQ, and French Vogue. In addition, his photographs have been exhibited in Hip-Hop Nation: Roots, Rhymes, and Rage at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, at Xhibiton Transition in Chicago, and at Trace Magazine: True Signs in Paris. Shabazz is a Teaching Artist with Rush Arts Foundation, where he mentors at-risk youth. He is a philanthropist who supports organizations like The Harlem Art Project, The Queens Council on the Arts, and Project Hope. He has published four books with powerHouse: the forthcoming October 2007 release Seconds of My Life, as well as Back in the Days, A Time Before Crack, and Last Sunday in June (2001, 2005, and 2003). Shabazz was born in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in 1960.