#BTColumn – Photographer par excellence

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados TODAY Inc.

by Walter Edey

Outstanding people live a fulfilled life. They are selfless, embrace the ordinary and write untold memories.

As a young man, the late Clyde O Jones, after his brother turned down his father’s request, he traded jobs and became a prison officer.    

Later in life, Jones revealed that it was the best decision he ever made.

“Imagine it was an inmate who introduced the eleventh commandment – man know thyself, to me.

It was in a prison that I learned the power of fairness,” Jones often boasted. Jones lived that self-image idea. He walked daily with a package of lifelines – that included:

“(1) When I wake up in the morning, and I look into the mirror, I see Clyde Jones, not you.

(2) Ever so welcome, wait for a call.

(3) It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.”

In Jones’ self-published two hundred page full-color pictorial “The Man and His Camera – Jones described the objective of his work: “the camera is how I convey a meaning, a mood, of a sensation to others.

I like to think of my work as primarily a form of communication. I am an agent of the facts, and my photographs are a registry of ideas and emotions.”

Jones a proud member of the Barbados Regiment worked tirelessly through many nights. Except for Steven Massiah, who assisted him with the design, few, including his wife Thelma Jones, was aware of the 2nd edition until after it was completed. According to Jones, a local printer was surprised by the quality of the publication.

Jones also surprised Thelma Jones, his wife and friend of more than fifty years. He included her successful banking career story – and character reference.

He mentioned that she was also an employee of Her Majesty’s Prison in Barbados.   

Jones was a true adventurer. He attended a wide cross section of events, built relationships with all classes of people. He set an alarm clock, left his Brooklyn home and covered major cultural, social, political and tourism events in Barbados.

In addition to hard news, he often shared human stories. One day, he chanced upon a familiar face. When he noticed the person’s hush puppies, he approached then and inquired if he could help.

He took the hand of the late Tom Adams, then the leader of the opposition, who assisted with the purchase of a camera. Adams became Prime Minister.

According to Jones, Adams called him later and said: “Clyde, our politics are different, but I want you to be Barbados’ official photographer when President Reagan visits Barbados.”

Jones appreciated every assignment and moment – smiling and saying thank you after each picture he took or note he wrote; and expressing compassion and strengthening relationships.

Yet he was unafraid to alert officials and others when protocol was broken.

If officials posed for a picture in front of the American flag, Jones waited until other photographers finished. Then, with a stern smile, he would invite officials to stand in front of the Barbados Flag.

Jones arrived early at functions. He sat, observed and surveyed audiences from a distance.

Never in a hurry, waiting for the right moment, and taking pictures with a long lens from the shadows.

He leaves a collection of photographs that historians will use to write part of the history of Barbados in America.   

Jones, a former computer clerk at Chemical bank, completed studies and Canada and at the New York University.

Jones was an accredited internal journalist and travel consultant and contributor to the Barbados Advocate and the Nation News. Jones immigrated from Barbados is the sixties and died in Brooklyn, New York, on Easter Saturday, 2021

Walter Edey is a retired math and science educator.