Howard Morehead, Ebony's first West Coast photographer, dies

Jet, August 11, 2003

Noted photographer Howard Morehead, who became EBONY Magazine's first West Coast photographer in 1958, recently died in Los Angeles. He was believed to have been 79.

Morehead apparently died of complications from cardiovascular disease at Veterans Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reported.

A native of Topeka, Kansas, he served in World War II as one of the Tuskegee Airmen. He later studied photography at Los Angeles City College and the University of Southern California.

He worked as a staff photographer of the Los Angeles Sentinel in the 1950s, before becoming EBONY's West Coast photographer. His photography was also featured in JET. He photographed such performers as Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis and others. He also shot album covers for Ray Charles and jazz great Dexter Gordon.

He later became the first Black cameraman at a Los Angeles TV station--KTLA in 1970.

There are no known survivors.