Ruddy Roye is a photojournalist born in 1969 in Jamaica who is now based in Brooklyn. He specializes in editorial and environmental portraits. Some of his career highlights include working for the New York Times and ESPN Magazine. Roye aims to use his photography to give dignity to underrepresented groups and amplify unheard voices in his community. He has faced bias as one of the first black photographers in his field but has influenced how other photographers from marginalized groups are now treated.

1. Ruddy Roye
Photo by: Ruddy Roye

2. Who is Ruddy Roye?
• Ruddy Roye is photojournalist born in Jamaica in 1969.
• He is specialised in editorial & environmental portraits.
• He’s based in Brooklyn nowadays.
• He was listed in Top 50 street photographers right now by Complex.
Photo by: Ruddy Roye

3. Career Path & Era
• Ruddy is currently part of the Workshop called Kamoinge.
• He has also worked for the New York Times and ESPN Magazine and many other publications.
• He traveled to Kongo to document how Jamaicans use dance as a tool for activisim.
• He is very active in his Instagram account and he has gained over 280.000 followers in his
account. He has 4 593 posts there too.
• He is famous from his style to take photos from the streets and black people.
• If he weren’t a photographer he would be either musician or professor in that order.
• He started his job in 2000 and is still active.
• Because he started on early 2000s, photojournalism was profession at the time.
• He definitely has affected how people and colleagues treat black photographers.

4. Motivate & Technology
• In the article Ruddy Roye’s: Take On The Role of Photography, Ruddy says that what motivates him
is pretty simple: I look for dignity.
• ¨ I look for what is familiar. I find it easier to look for in it somebody else and to photograph it as a
way of talking about it¨.
• National Geographic article he says: The idea that my images or the work I do in photography will
one day help someone to move forward or change the world in any small way fuels my passion.
• His Mom is his biggest motivator and he tries to make her happy with everything he is doing.
• He says that he uses camera to reflect the times.
• In some point he was using FUJIFILM GFX 50R as his go to camera.
• In the article: Tool for change he is saying that ¨ The camera’s versatility was key to reproducing
the “high-contrast” and “deliciously saturated” tones¨.
• Perfect photo for him is that the photo makes viewer move whether emotionally or spiritually.
Photo By: Unknown

5. Ethics & Bias
• Ruddy is inspired by people who are living on the streets and their life hasn’t been easy and
especially those of his home country Jamaica.
• He is trying to make them voices heard by everyone.
• He has faced a lot of biases in his long career. Because he was one of the first Jamaican
Photographers people thought he can’t take photos.
• In the TIME’S article Robert Scott says that black photographers face a lot of rasicm but ¨it’s
nothing new¨ for them and they have to be prepared for everything.

6. Photographic style Part 1
Photo By: Ruddy Roye Photo By: Ruddy Roye

7. Photographic style Part 2
Photo By: Ruddy Roye Photo By: Ruddy Roye

8. Impact
• Ruddy has affected a lot of different societys but especially for black
community.
• He tries to use his photos as a tool to umplify unheard voices on his
community.
• He has been involved strongly to support the Black Lives Matter
campaign by taking photos and published photos to his social media.

9. My Major at AIC
• It’s hard to say what reflects to my major because my major is
International Business.
• I would say that the hard work Ruddy have done reflects to my major
because I have to work very hard to get good grades from my Major
courses.
• He didn’t have easy childhood and he had to work so hard to get to
the point he is now and I have to do it also to graduate from the
College.

10. Viewpoints
• As a black photojournalist there were prejudices for Ruddy.
• It is not easy to be black photojournalist especially when there are a
lot of people watching your photos and giving feedback.
• In the POPPHOTO’s article he says that he got very positive feedback
from his work and he was little bit surprised about how much he got
positive feedback.
• In the same article he mentioned that: ¨For me, black folks continue
to evolve. As the struggle evolve, I have to evolve¨.
• That tells you how much inequality there are in the world.