Jim Sugar's Brief Bio

Jim Sugar has been a working photographer since three days after graduating with Honors from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. National Geographic hired Jim as a summer intern following graduation.  Since then, he illustrated 35 articles in National Geographic Magazine, 3 books for the National Geographic book division, 9 cover stories for Popular Mechanics, and six cover stories for Boy's Life.  His commercial clients include DuPont, AT&T, IBM, SAP, and VISA. As a videographer and filmmaker, he worked on a 1-hour documentary for Radio Television Ireland that received a 31% market share in December, 2009.

Jim has won the NPPA Magazine Photographer of the Year contest and finished as runner-up in the White House News Photographer Contest. He is fluent in French, holds a Commercial pilot's license with instrument, multi-engine, and seaplane ratings, and scuba dives, when necessary, to make photos.  Jim is married and has a 22-year old son who is a senior at the University of California @ Santa Barbara.  He says that making the transition from film to digital has presented his biggest challenge as a working photographer.