Howard L. Bingham

Howard Bingham, hoping to turn a hobby into a trade, took a beginner’s course in photography at a local community college in 1958. His instructor, after handing him an F letter grade, advised Bingham to try something else. Photography, he was told, would not be a good field to choose as his life’s work. But Bingham’s inner voice told him otherwise, and because he followed his internal gyroscope, spent the better part of his life photographing many of America’s historical turning points, as well as one of the world’s best-known and most-beloved figures, Muhammad Ali.

Born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1939, Howard Bingham soon relocated to Los Angeles with his parents at age 4. He attended the city’s public schools, and enrolled in Compton College from 1956-1958. After receiving an eye-opening F grade in photography class, Bingham felt determined to hone his craft and began apprenticing at the Los Angeles Sentinel one of the country’s largest Black newspapers under photographer Cliff Hall. That job lasted Bingham for about 18 months, until he was fired for supplementing his weekly $75 salary moonlighting as a wedding photographer.

I was devastated at first, but actually, in retrospect it was the best thing in the world that could have happened to me,” Bingham once said. “Because if I’d stayed at the Sentinel, I never would have done half the things I’ve done since then, such as traveling the world and documenting the life of my best friend Muhammad Ali.”

As fate would have it, while working at the Sentinel in 1962, Bingham was assigned to cover, a brash young boxer from Louisville, Kentucky, named Cassius Clay. Clay was in Los Angeles to promote an upcoming bout with George Logan. Bingham showed up, took his photographs and then left. But as Bingham ran errands later that day, he saw Clay and his brother standing on the corner of 5th and Broadway, watching the girls go by. Bingham walked up to the Clay brothers and offered to show them around town. That impromptu generosity became the first step in a life-changing, life-long friendship with the boxing legend who the world would soon come to know as Muhammad Ali.

Since that pivotal day, Bingham toured the globe with Muhammad Ali, chronicling every aspect of the athlete’s life. Through Bingham’s relationship with Ali, he came in contact with Bill Cosby who then asked Bingham to be the still photographer on his new show -“The Bill Cosby Show.” This opportunity led to Bingham becoming one of the first Black photographers to work on a Hollywood international cinematographers guild camera crew. During the late 1960’s, Life Magazine hired Bingham as their go-to riot photographer. When Life Magazine wanted to do a story on the Black Panthers, their party leader Eldridge Cleaver agreed upon one condition- if Howard Bingham took the pictures. In 1968, he journeyed to Chicago to cover the chaos of the Democratic National Convention. Bingham’s work and contribution to the field of photography did not go unnoticed; the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., M+B Fine Arts, California African American Museum and Fowler Museum in Los Angeles have all exhibited his work. In 1997 he received the ASP International Award presented by the American Society of Photographers, as well as the Kodak Vision Award. Bingham’s name now graces a Kodak-sponsored academic scholarship, which goes to a deserving minority photography student at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Bingham also became a member of the board at the George Eastman House. In 1998, the Photo Marketing Distributors Association (PMDA) named Bingham Photographer of the Year, and the Watts Labor Community Action Committee created a media center in his name for the purpose of teaching photography to young people living in South Los Angeles. In 2004, he was appointed Honorary Curator of Photography at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, where; a gallery in his name is now a key space for special art exhibitions held at the center. Notably, he also received the Gordon Parks Choice of Weapons Award in 2006. Bingham has photographed numerous cultural icons including Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, The Beatles, The Black Panthers, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and countless others.

Many of Howard Bingham’s images are available for sale. All photographs are produced from the original transparency and/or negative and come with an estate stamp. All prints are exhibition quality and most are available in the following sizes: 16” x 20”, 20” x 24” and 30’ x 40”. Larger prints may be available upon request. For all inquiries please email hlbinghamphotos@gmail.com.