Jim Engelbrecht (Born in 1953) is an international travel photographer who grew up with National Geographic and used to admire the great photographers that worked for the magazine. He was transported to every location they photographed. He was determined to be able to capture that same quality with his photos. He was born in Chicago, IL and grew up in Cincinnati, OH. He went to Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY after completing high school. After a decade in Rochester, he decided to move to Boston where he worked as a designer in advertising and as an art director at Parker Brothers. This is where he met Lisa, fell in love with her and later they got married. Engelbrecht became a creative director in the travel industry in which one of his duties was to hire photographers. Engelbrecht first took to photography in high school.
He was able to sell his photos and saved some which helped him to graduate to a 35mm SLR Nikkormat from a Kodak Brownie, so he could work on his high school yearbook. He also took a part time job in the darkroom of a photo studio. In college, he majored in communication design and photo illustration, but took a job as an art director and designer. Engelbrecht art directed numerous photo shots over the years and also hired photographers for travel assignments. Later on, he decided that he wanted to shoot assignments and get out from behind a desk. Given that he ad worked on the inside of the travel industry for many years, he had made valuable contacts and had known what photo editors were looking for.
