James Van Der Zee was just a young boy when he saved enough money to buy his first camera. He took photos of his family, classmates, and anyone who would sit still for a portrait. By the fifth grade, James was the school photographer and unofficial town photographer. Eventually he outgrew his small town and moved to the exciting, fast-paced world of New York City.

After being told by his boss that no one would want his or her photo taken -by a Black man, in 1916 James and his wife Gaynella Greenlee opened his own portrait studio in Harlem named .the Guarantee Photo Studio.

He took photographs of legendary figures of the Harlem Renaissance--politicians such as Marcus Garvey, performers including Florence Mills, Bill -Bojangles- Robinson, and Mamie Smith--and ordinary folks in the neighborhood too.

Everyone wanted fancy portraits by James Van Der Zee. Winner of Lee & Low's New Voices Award, Take a Picture of Me, James Van Der Zee! tells the story of a groundbreaking artist who chronicled an important era in Harlem and showed the beauty and pride of its people.
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Official Bio
Andrea J. Loney’s works include the Caldecott Honor winning picture book DOUBLE BASS BLUES, the Lee and Low New Voices Award winning and an NAACP Award nominated picture book biography TAKE A PICTURE OF ME, JAMES VANDERZEE!, the picture book BUNNYBEAR, an ALA Rainbow List title, and middle-grade chapter book biography VIP STACEY ABRAMS: VOTING VISIONARY. Her work can also be found in the critically-acclaimed children’s poetry anthology NO VOICE TOO SMALL: FOURTEEN YOUNG AMERICANS MAKING HISTORY. Her upcoming books include picture book biography CURVE AND FLOW: THE ELEGANT VISION OF LA ARCHITECT PAUL R. WILLIAMS (Knopf, Fall 2022), and futuristic chapter book series ABBY IN ORBIT (Albert Whitman and Company, October 2022).

Raised in a small New Jersey town by an African-American mother and a Panamanian/Jamaican father, Andrea spent most of her childhood reading books and writing her own stories. She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing at New York University, ran away with The Big Apple Circus for a year, and then took an Amtrak train across the country to Hollywood. For over a decade, she worked for the film, television, and gaming industries, mostly at The Walt Disney Company.

Now, she teaches computer science courses at a local community college, and writing classes at organizations around the country. She also travels across the country to speak and present at schools, libraries, and conferences. And now she travels by plane (it’s much faster!).

Andrea lives in Los Angeles, California with her towering stacks of picture books, her devoted family, and their incredibly spoiled pets.