Jay Colton Dies In Brazil At Photo Workshop

 

By Donald R. Winslow
© 2010 News Photographer magazine

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (September 19, 2010) – Popular American photographer and picture editor Jay Colton has died suddenly while working at an international photography festival in Brazil, according to his family. He was 57.

Colton was taking part in critiques of student portfolios at the Paraty em Foco International Photography Festival on Saturday when he fell ill, according to accounts, and he was taken by ambulance to a hospital where he died.

"Sadly, it's true," his brother Jim Colton told News Photographer magazine on Sunday night. "Jay passed away Saturday in Brazil. We are still in a state of shock. It's very hard to fathom." Jay and Jim Colton's father, photographic legend Sandy Colton, an NPPA Life Member, died in December 2008 after a lengthy battle with cancer.

In addition to working as a photographer, during his extensive career Colton was a picture editor and special projects editor for Time Inc. and TIME magazine for more than 20 years, a picture editor at Sports Illustrated, as well as working at the agency Gamma Liaison. Colton joined Time Inc. in 1981 as an associate picture editor for MONEY magazine. He was also one of the team editors at the Eddie Adams Barnstorm workshops. Alyssa Adams said Colton was scheduled to be a Barnstorm team editor again this year at the upcoming October session.

"Jay was an example of what photography editors should be like, the way he touched people," photojournalist and friend Manuello Paganelli said tonight from Los Angeles. "He was a great photographer, but at the same time he was giving photographers like me assignments with love. He helped so many photographers like myself. We are the people we are today because of him. He was always kind, and treated people with appreciation. And he was a teacher. I learned so many things from him."

"He took the time to meet with upcoming photographers and he would guide them and give them ideas about what would make a better portfolio," Paganelli said. "He was a gentle man with a kind heart and a vision for talented photographers. And during his last years, he found a passionate and true love for Brazil."

"Jay Colton's contribution to the photo team at Time magazine for nearly 20 years was nothing short of extraordinary," MaryAnne Golon said today. She worked with Colton at the magazine for many years.

"He so loved photography and photographers and thrived in the grueling process of closing a newsmagazine on deadline. His boundless enthusiasm was completely infectious and his creativity most inspiring. When Time won an ASME award for its coverage of the 9/11 tragedy, Jay was an important member of a tight team that stayed awake for two consecutive days editing through thousands of pictures trying to choose just the right ones. Whenever anyone needed him, personally or professionally, he would drop everything to help. He was one of my close personal friends whom I deeply admired and cherished both as a colleague and a confidante. The photo industry has lost a very bright light. I hope that we can continue to keep his spirit alive in our hearts and in our work."

Colton is survived by his wife, Moira North, and a son Christopher.

"Jay had just finished a big trip with his son before going to Brazil," New York based photographer and Colton's friend William Coupon said tonight. "They had gone to Montreal and Rochester, scoping out colleges for Christopher for next year."

Within the past few years Colton and Coupon had become good friends. Coupon lived close to Colton, and they saw each other often, he said, frequently for lunch.

"He was a great photographer, but he also loved to cook, he loved Frank Zappa, as well as jazz and classical music, and he knew so much about physics and, of course, photography."

In 2005 while working at TIME magazine, Colton started kidney dialysis and went on a waiting list for a kidney transplant. Each dialysis session lasted more than four hours, and Colton needed to go three times each week.

Photojournalist Paganelli said that he felt that he owed his friend Colton so much, he was moved to fly from Los Angeles to New York to be tested as a possible kidney donor. "I didn't match, of course, the odds are like a million to one, but what a storybook ending the story had ... the perfect donor turned out to be his wife, Moira."

"Jay Colton was a class act," photographer Yunghi Kim said tonight. "Always warm and gracious. All of the Colton family is like that, starting with their father Sandy. Jimmy too. A talented and classy family."

 

Additional details were not available at press time, but any developments will be updated to this story.

 

 

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