 While in college, his friendship with photographer Herman Leonard helped him make connections with record companies in New York City.His clients would include Impulse, Mercury, Reprise and Verve, for whom he took cover photos of artists such jazz and R&B icons as Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Lionel Hampton, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Charles Mingus, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington, appearing on more than 2,000 albums and in publications including "Esquire", "Paris Match" and "The New York Times", as well as in the "Encyclopedia of Jazz" by jazz journalist Leonard Feather.He also worked for Chess Records in Chicago (and its Argo subsidiary).