STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Jonathan Sharpe arrived early once, around 4:00 a.m. on a Thursday in late June.  Jonathan’s father, a Pentecostal preacher, sped toward downtown Columbia, SC, as his wife lay eight months pregnant on the back seat of a Ford Galaxie 500 coupe with a landau top and cloth seats. After a brief and terrifying moment of flight as the speeding car crested Hampton Street, Jonathan made his appearance at Baptist Hospital. (The Ford’s interior remained immaculate.) Jonathan’s family moved through several small towns in SC and Pennsylvania before settling in Lexington County in the mid-1980s.  Jonathan received a bachelor of science in biology from the University of SC.  Photography remained a self-taught creative outlet for Jonathan throughout his adult life. He began contributing as a freelancer with the Columbia Free Times in 2007, receiving recognition for his photography work from the American Advertising Federation of the Midlands in 2008 and the SC Press Association in 2012. In joining Jasper as a staff photographer, Jonathan’s goal is to bring artists in the community the dignity that comes with recognition of their work. Jonathan spotted his doppelganger wearing an elevator repairman’s uniform in a Denver mall.