JUNE DELAIRRE TRUESDALE

June DeLairre Truesdale began her career as a photographer after receiving her B.A. from Fordham University in NYC. She has worked as a NYC Police photographer and as a freelance photojournalist. She is distinguished as being the first black female photographer hired by the NYC Police Department. She was staff photographer for ENCORE magazine, and movie set still photographer for a Melvin Van Peebles movie. She has covered assignments in the entertainment, construction, political and criminal justice arenas. In addition, she worked with Gordon Parks (on his catalogue project) and Phyllis Hyman, as her personal NYC publicity photographer. June was personal family photographer to the late New York State Senator Joseph L. Galiber.

Ms. Truesdale’s works hang in the DuSable Museum’s permanent collection (in Chicago), and in the Philadelphia African American Museum.

Currently, Ms. Truesdale is working on her book, “Come Sunday: Harlem Churches Great and Small;” a compilation of photographs of over 350 churches and places of worship, photographed in Harlem between 1986 and 1995. The book will also include histories/stories of the churches’ beginnings, etc. Ms. Truesdale says, of this work: “I feel duty bound to protect and preserve this small slice of Harlem’s rich, vital, religious landscape, and to make this chronicle of images and histories available to a broader audience, for generations to come.”

Ms. Truesdale is a member of KAMOINGE INC. A consortium of Black New York City based photographers. KAMOINGE has been in existence for over 50 years.

Finally, Ms. Truesdale says “I am happiest with a camera in my hands.”