Jonathan Newton is entering his 31st season as a professional photographer. He joined the staff of The Washington Post in summer 2000.
Washington Post staff photographer Jonathan Newton, on January, 04, 2017 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)
He started out at the Nashville Banner in 1986, After a little more than a year at the Banner, he moved to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he spent 10 years shooting assignments that included the Atlanta Braves. He joined the St. Petersburg Times in 1998 when the town landed an expansion baseball team.
A Louisville native and the youngest of eight children, Newton worked many jobs after high school, including apple picker in Canada, kitchen cleaner at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park, aluminum siding installer, liquor store clerk, pot washer at a Jewish deli, fish fryer, house painter and busboy. It was as a student at Jefferson Community College that he got his first taste of newspapers, shooting pictures for the weekly student publication. With $300 saved from his busboy job, he went to a downtown Louisville pawnshop and bought his first professional camera equipment.
Newton has covered almost every major sporting event in the world: the Olympics in 1996, 2008 and 2016; the Kirkwall Ba in Scotland, in 2007; four World Series; six National League Championships; six NCAA Final Fours;; the Preakness; several heavyweight title bouts in Las Vegas; college football championships; the Super Bowl; and countless high school sporting events.
Newton’s awards include the Morris Berman NPPA Citation; White House News Photographers Association awards; Baseball Hall of Fame photo contest; first place in the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors sports competition; and three-time Georgia Photographer of the Year.
He lives in Maryland.
