![\"Jones](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/VHU5TM6Y232BRGZSQO34JDK3ZI.jpg\")
Jones spoke about his photography in front of of his slides placed on a light box. Suzanne Kreiter\/Globe Staff<\/p>\n\u201cThey paid me a pittance, but it completely changed my career,\u201d said Jones, who is still working at the age of 80. \u201cIt was interesting for this little nobody, and I took it to the extreme.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones spoke about his photography in front of of his slides placed on a light box. Suzanne Kreiter\/Globe Staff<\/p>\n
Instead of simply photographing handshakes and historic sites, Jones journeyed into the neighborhoods, where he took his cameras to out-of-the-way streets to show what the Bicentennial meant to ordinary and marginalized Bostonians.<\/p>\n
As the nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, Jones\u2019s work from a half-century ago is receiving renewed attention.<\/p>\n
A native of Washington, D.C., who moved to the South End in the late 1960s, Jones found his way to the Bicentennial celebration as a fledgling photographer with Boston 200, which managed the city\u2019s commemoration of that anniversary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m an outsider, remember, and I\u2019m just learning my craft,\u201d Jones recalled. <\/p>\n
The importance of the Bicentennial initially did not carry much meaning for him, Jones said. And in a city painfully divided by court-ordered busing to desegregate its schools, the promise of the Declaration of Independence could prompt celebration or cynicism depending on one\u2019s address.<\/p>\n
![\"“First](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/NKGNDEQYXTW5FIW7DKVGPFRBZA.JPG\")
\u201cFirst Day of the Bicentennial Celebration,\u201d taken by photographer Lou Jones at Eliot Square, Roxbury, in 1975.Lou Jones![\"Girls](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SRRRGLSLLL427YWRDOMCFUZ6F4.JPG\")
Girls marched in a Bicentennial parade in Eliot Square, Roxbury, in April 1975 in a photograph taken by Lou Jones. Lou Jones<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned that the difference between the haves and the have-nots was far bigger than I had ever encountered,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI learned that Boston would be a complicated relationship for me going forward.\u201d <\/p>\n
That relationship became a close one with his adopted home, despite what Jones sees as a still-evolving conversation about race.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a lot of the same problems exist. Some people are very resistant to Black people moving in,\u201d Jones said. \u201cBut Boston has tried very hard. I find Boston to be a lot more capable of dealing with diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fifty years ago, Jones recalled, \u201cI couldn\u2019t get hired for anything as a Black man, not even as an assistant. But think about it. I\u2019ve now been in this business for 50 years as a photographer.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack then, I would not have believed it.\u201d <\/p>\n
![\"“Chain](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/FIUQ4GMLWNYIXZZVUG5ELAY6C4.JPG\")
\u201cChain Gang,\u201d a photo taken by Lou Jones in Huntsville, Texas, on May 4, 2011. Part of Jones’s “Final Exposure” project, the image shows Death Row inmates working in a field.Lou Jones<\/p>\n
Along the way, Jones\u2019s self-taught photography has become part of the permanent collections of prestigious institutions such as Harvard University, the Boston Athenaeum, and the Boston Public Library, which holds more than 250 pieces of Jones\u2019s work. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe quality of Lou\u2019s work over decades as a commercial, editorial, and fine-arts photographer is unmatched,\u201d said Aaron Schmidt, the library\u2019s curator of photography.<\/p>\n
Through his lenses, Jones said, \u201cI look at everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
That wasn\u2019t always the case. Jones graduated with a physics degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and then worked briefly for NASA. Eventually, and ever since, he became captivated by the art and creativity of photography.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought for a minute I would be taking pictures,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI had no education in photography.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bicentennial provided a springboard for his developing passion, even if Jones first regarded the work as only a temporary diversion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the beginning, nobody knew what the Bicentennial was, but it got bigger and bigger and bigger,\u201d Jones said. <\/p>\n
![\"Jones](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/N557PPIYD6QG2L5KGUQ46K7P4E.jpg\")
Jones stood in his home in East Boston. He was honored last year by Revolutionary Spaces with its Community Changemaker Award, recognizing his lifetime achievements as well as his work during the Bicentennial.Suzanne Kreiter\/Globe Staff<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople started to get very, very into it. It was very palpable,\u201d he added. \u201cI suddenly realized I had access that I could not get in my normal life, and I thought, \u2018I can leverage this.\u2019 \u201d <\/p>\n
Jones took his cameras into Roxbury, where he photographed street fairs and summer showers from open hydrants. And he looked for pictures at the St. Patrick\u2019s Day parade in South Boston amid a mixed reception of taunts and curiousity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was learning that Boston had these very segmented, segregated neighborhoods,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI was promoting the city, and at the same time, some people are saying we\u2019ve been ignored.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw that as my responsibility,\u201d he added. \u201cThey needed more representation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Revolutionary Spaces, a nonprofit organization that stimulates civic dialogue through its management of the Old State House and Old South Meeting House, honored Jones last year with its Community Changemaker Award.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeyond the headline events and public figures, Lou captured intimate shots of ordinary people in all of Boston\u2019s neighborhoods, documenting in a vivid fashion the complex relationship that Bostonians have with their city\u2019s rich history,\u201d said Nathaniel Sheidley, president of Revolutionary Spaces.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis photographs remind us that who is seen, and how, defines how we remember the past, just as our memory of the past tells us who matters, and why. These lessons are more important now than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Jones, the journey always has been about people, and it has been seasoned with innumerable, practical lessons about how to make those encounters happen.<\/p>\n
To embed himself with one of the international Tall Ships during their Bicentennial parade into Boston Harbor, Jones didn\u2019t wait for a city-brokered invitation. He wrote to the ship crews himself and found himself atop one of the dizzyingly high masts of the Christian Radich, a Norwegian ship, where he photographed a sailor climbing up the rigging. <\/p>\n
Photographers with vertigo need not apply.<\/p>\n
![\"“In](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4AB5SJOQK3F7QNHXVYXVPIK63Q.JPG\")
\u201cIn the Rigging of a Tall Ship,\u201d taken by photographer Lou Jones in the Atlantic Ocean in 1976.Lou Jones![\"“Queen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/V4DAKBQBRSGMICXLJ4NN6AUHEA.JPG\")
\u201cQueen Elizabeth II and Mayor Kevin White,\u201d photographed by Lou Jones at Government Center in 1976.Lou Jones<\/p>\n
Jones also wouldn\u2019t take no for an answer when Queen Elizabeth II, the first reigning British monarch to visit the cradle of the Revolution, toured the city with Prince Philip in July 1976.<\/p>\n
He talked his way past security at the doors to the Old State House, where the queen addressed a crowd from the same balcony where the Declaration of Independence was first read to Bostonians. <\/p>\n
And without seeking permission, he ducked past yet another stern-faced, security agent, who had been posted at the upper-floor entrance to the chamber that led to the balcony.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard, \u2018Where are you going?\u2019 but just bent down, went under his arm, and never looked back,\u201d Jones said with a laugh. <\/p>\n
As the queen left the balcony, Jones recalled, he began walking backward in what he calls \u201cthe photographer\u2019s two-step \u2014 \u201ctwo steps, click; two steps, click.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of a sudden, I hear a grumble,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI had backed Prince Philip into the corner bookcase! I thought I would hear, \u2018Off with his head.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
After a half-century, Jones hasn\u2019t put his cameras away. Instead, he is preparing for yet another extended trip for his \u201cpanAFRICAproject,\u201d which he describes as \u201credefining the modern image\u201d of the continent.<\/p>\n
![\"“Massai](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/JMWMILXOZHPLXYVO6QA2KKXNQQ.JPEG\")
\u201cMassai Warrior,\u201d taken by Lou Jones in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, on April 19, 2022. Part of Jones’s “panAFRICAproject”, the photo highlights the importance of cattle to local tribes.Lou Jones<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a project that reemphasizes Jones\u2019s career-long interest in people \u2014 whether on Death Row in Texas or the side streets of Roxbury and South Boston \u2014 and his commitment to portray them with humanity, dignity, and context.<\/p>\n
\u201cI devour photography,\u201d Jones said, reflecting on a long career unexpectedly jump-started by the Bicentennial.<\/p>\n
Jones paused and smiled when asked what the nation\u2019s 250th anniversary means to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means survival,\u201d he said with a chuckle. \u201cFifty years is a long time.\u201d <\/p>\n