My Biography
This is my opportunity to describe my photographic background and how I got here.

An informal chat about my years of photographic experience: 

DESIGN PHOTO is a one-man show (that's me) with a 14-year-old assistant, my grandson, Patrick McLean.  Pat is a sharp kid and is a great assistant while out on location. 

My love of cameras began years ago in junior high school in Silver Spring, Maryland.  Over the years I have owned a retail camera store, commercial photography business, and have spent many hours with my fingers in darkroom chemical trays.  My pictures have appeared in magazines, newspapers, and hardcover books, and on most of the walls of my home. 

My experience in architectural photography began early-on as my father (who was an architect) tried to instill in me that parallel lines are found on the architect's drawing board and so should be replicated in the camera lens. 

My life-long profession has not been as a photographer.  In my four Navy years, I worked in an air traffic control tower after which I joined the Federal Aviation Administration and spent 32 years as an air traffic controller and quality assurance specialist.  It was during those years that I co-existed as a photographer/writer/researcher both for the FAA and as a part of my "outside" personal endeavors. 

In the early 1970's, I began work on a picture history of Nassau County, Florida.  Coincidently, it was finished and released by July 4, 1976, the nation's 200th anniversary.  That was my first venture into serious years of historic photo reproduction and research.  The book's title was Yesterday's Reflections, going on to five revised editions over the years.  The last two printings were so heavily revised that we changed the name (how creative of me) to Yesterday's Reflections II. 

In the late 1970's and early 1980's, I took a break from controlling airplanes and enjoyed a few years in the commercial photography and retail camera business.  This was in South Carolina, and it was there that my commercial photography business was dubbed DESIGN PHOTO.  With the air traffic control system in need of support after the strike in 1981, I returned full time to the world of the FAA and Florida where I assumed the role of quality assurance specialist and an unofficial public affairs person.

In the mid-1980's, I took thousands of pictures for FAA publications and co-published an FAA newsletter.  Two other projects came my way as the decade went by.  The FAA published a magazine format photo project that I had written a few years prior entitled, "Early Aviation and Jacksonville's Air Route Traffic Control Center."  I co-authored and published a magazine for air traffic controllers that produced eight bi-monthly issues of aviation related articles and photographs.  The latter effort was my first serious venture into layout and production. 

In the 1990's, I began work on the 4th edition of Yesterday's Reflections, requiring additional research and the computer scanning of most of the old original photographs to sharpen the image of the book and brought a noticeable change to the color of my hair. 

I retired from the FAA in early 1999, and devoted my first "retirement" years to the fourth and fifth editions of Yesterday's Reflections.  By the time the fifth edition was published, I was already knee-deep in a coffee table book of historic old homes of Amelia Island and the surrounding tidewater area.  It was completed in a little over two years and released by February of 2003. 

I have now combined the first lessons I learned from Dana B. Johannes, AIA, with all of the skills that I have picked up since, and have turned those skills into the operation of an architectural photography business.  It's my way of having fun and staying out of trouble. 

Jan Johannes, Design Photo Owner/Photographer

Call (904) 386-5694 or send me an e-mail