Jim started his path in photography during his university years while working part-time as a writer/photographer at the Portsmouth Herald. Following his graduation from the University of New Hampshire with a degree in English/Journalism, Jim served as a Visual Journalism fellow at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida.

After the fellowship, Jim was welcomed as a photography intern at the Valley News in West Lebanon, New Hampshire. Enamored with the green mountains of Vermont and the small town community of the Connecticut River Valley, Jim remained with the Valley News for over a year. Jim then had the privilege of being part of the Concord Monitor staff as an intern during the 2004 New Hampshire primary and photographed candidates John Kerry, Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt and others behind the scenes for which the photography staff was recognized nationally.

In addition to Jim's work with community newspapers, he has done freelance assignments for the The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press.

Jim has a free spirit and sharp eye for scenes that capture the human condition and has nurtured this talent by participating in numerous conferences and workshops such as Eddie Adams, Kentucky, and Missouri Workshops. At the Missouri Workshop Jim was awarded the Howard Chapnick Award for compassionate photography.

Jim met his wife, Annah, and traveled to Morocco to learn Arabic soon after his internship with the Concord Monitor. From Morocco, Jim traveled through Egypt, Jordan and Syria where his interest for the Middle East grew. After returning to the U.S., he had an exhibition of his photographs in Washington, D.C.

In September of 2005, Jim received a Fulbright Scholarship to Jordan where he worked on a documentary photographic project and studied Arabic. His photographs were exhibited by the city of Amman, Jordan, in a large installation at the city's cultural square.

Jim then moved to Athens, Ohio, where he completed a Master's degree in photography at the School of Visual Communications at Ohio University in 2010.

Following his graduate studies and his long term project along the Ohio River, Jim travelled to Saudi Arabia. While living in Riyadh he documented the lives of immigrant workers and learned how to grow bok choy in the sand.

Jim now resides in Codogno, Italy, just south of Milan.