Renowned Photographer to Be Buried

Montego Bay: Renowned Photographer to Be Buried – For many people, they will only do one job they are taught to do for the rest of their lives. However, not all people have that luxury, in order to survive, people have to be innovative and create new ideas. However, this was not the case for the renowned freelance photographer, Carlton “Junior” Reid who died because of prostate cancer in August this year. He was born in Salem, Montego Bay in 1971 and lived there for most of his life.

Carlton Reid started his photography journey at a photo studio called Photo Express which was located beside City Center. With over 25 years in photography, he is not only remembered for taking photographs but he was also known as an entrepreneur. Griffrey Lewis, a freelance photographer, says Carlton Reid was one of the first persons to implement graduation photo packages in school. Subsequently, as time went by more photographers followed in his footsteps and we are seeing the fruit of his labor today.

He was also known amongst his peers as someone that would always look to make money if his current job was not paying him enough.  He would always encourage others to do the same as he believed everyone should be able to make their own money.

Carlton was a man that thought about the community even though he charged them for his services, said Griffrey. “He always comes up with new ways of making money, for example, we did graduation packages for the schools, calendars, and even started to support the schools in sports. We supported the schools with pom-poms, headbands, armbands, and socks,” stated Lewis.

As a person who likes to help others, he would always try to share his wealth with his friends which made him happy. He would always buy food and liquor for his friends once he had the money. Last year, the covid-19 pandemic rocked the country and he realized that being creative would be the only solution to survive, as a result, he implemented different strategies to make money.

Due to the pandemic and a lack of business from schools because of the shutdown, Carlton thought that he could make money by selling masks and bedsheets. But unfortunately, it did not go according to plan as business slowed down once again. Consequently, he thought of selling food products in the market, like vegetables but decided against it, as it was deemed to be too expensive.

But he did not limit himself to Montego Bay but went as far as Accompong Town and opened a restaurant and bar. As a maroon, he integrated himself with the locals as his father was also from Accompong Town. Unfortunately, this relationship with the maroons did not go as well as he thought it would, and he had to move back to Montego Bay because of the loss of income.

In addition to his great work ethic, he did not limit himself by only focusing on his career but also excelled in other aspects of his life, such as his fashion sense, said Lewis. “ We went to Kingston to Seaga’s funeral and he was like the president there, as his suit was well put together. All eyes were on him and people felt as if he was a Maroon King because of his African outfit,” said Lewis. Carlton, having realized that he was being watched by the other funeral attendees had made some mischief by walking around the funeral unnecessarily, which drew even more attention to himself as people wondered who he was.

Carlton Reid’s funeral will be held at the Salem Open Bible church in Salem this Thursday, October 14, 2021. He will be buried at Waterworks which is located in Westmoreland.

Matthew Davis – News Reporter