Jamie began his career in photography more than 30 years ago... as a painter! This is not uncommon, as many who aspire to be artists, see themselves first as painters.
Several tortured years at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Philadelphia College of Art, demonstrated that he had only a mediocre facility for paints and brushes. A chance encounter with the French Alps and a Rollieflex given him by his father, showed him the way. He has never looked back.
Jamie's photography career began shooting fashion assignments and models portfolios. From the beginning, faces, were what turned his creative vision on.
He spent the early 70's shooting rock bands' album covers and small products, in addition to fashion assignments.
By the 80s he had grown bored with glitz 'n glam and made a radical switch to medical imaging. Combining a love for anatomy and physiology, he accepted simultaneous positions at 3 major Philadelphia hospitals. Over the course of the next several years he designed and implemented systems for Residents and medical students to image gross pathological specimens right in the lab and worked as a medical generalist, shooting everything from hospital PR to surgical procedures. His work has appeared in most of the major medical texts and journals.
By the 1990's Jamie was ready for something fresh. He made another radical shift. This time, it was photojournalism. 2 local weeklies were kind enough to give this newcomer a shot. He seemed to have found a niche because after a couple of years of shooting college football and human interest features, he chanced upon a notice on an internet website announcing a medical-relief expedition. 10,000 miles overland by Land Rover to Belize in Central America. After some high-level pleading his editor consented and off Jamie went in his Land Rover 110, to cover the trek. He didn't know it then, but his life was about to change. To make a very long story short, The sponsor of the expedition, an NGO from Atlanta, Georgia asked Jamie to sit on their board of trustees, then to accept the position of Media Director.
He jumped at this opportunity with some serious fervor. This was a chance to give something back to a world that had blessed him with whatever talent he posessed. Shooting relief efforts in third-world jungles and river basins brought new meaning to life. The images collected over those years bear testimony to a new sensitivity to the human condition.
After putting together a formidable production team Eisman and crew produced a feature-length music video of a song written by Andrae Crouch(The Lion King), during the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, when he carried an AK-47 opposite his camera bag.