Metro Roundup: Local photographer has photographed over 100 WWII veterans

Birmingham photographer Jeff Rease embarked on a project in March 2019 as a way to give back to WWII Veterans. His idea, the Portraits of Honor series, would allow him to make portraits of living veterans and also hear their stories first hand.

His reasoning?

“Because everyone needs to know what some of the 16 million-plus Americans who served sacrificed for their country and their families,” he said.

Rease’s father served in the Korean War as a 187th Airborne paratrooper for nine months before he was shot and wounded.

“There were only two jumps in Korea the Army made and he was in both of them,” he said.

Although his father passed away in 2011, Rease knows he would be proud of the way he is honoring other veterans. He was inspired by other photographers doing similar projects, including a friend from the United Kingdom.

“As a portrait photographer, I was always looking for interesting people to photograph,” Rease said. “I have an acquaintance of a photographer in England, and he was doing a 1940s project that developed into finding some British WWII veterans he started photographing. I thought it would be great to do something here to honor these veterans we still have in the United States. His work was a big inspiration for me and motivated me.”

Rease began doing photography after having a career as a graphic designer and art director. He said this project began at just the right time. When his job as a graphic designer ended in 2017, he focused all his efforts on Jeffrey Rease Photography.

“I can make it look the way I envision it, and I can get it out to more people to see it,” he said. “And I think people appreciate it more now, because so few of these veterans remain. I’m still learning and will improve on the portraits as I go along. But, oh the journey, and the stories and these heroes.”

Over the last year and a half, Rease has traveled all over the state of Alabama, along with other states, taking portraits of veterans. His goal was to photograph at least 100 veterans within a year after the project began, but COVID-19 delayed his plans some.

When figuring out how to locate the veterans, his wife suggested her “Uncle Bookie” in New Orleans. When Rease asked his son if he’d be interested in being photographed, he was quickly told he wouldn’t ever do that.

Rease came across a Facebook post by television anchor Rick Karle of a 99-year-old marine being honored at a football game. Through Karle, Rease was able to get in touch with the veteran, Col. Carl Cooper, a resident of Vestavia Hills.

Cooper became the first in his portrait series. He wore his Marine uniform and posed in his home, just 15 minutes away from Rease’s home in Highland Lakes. Rease said Cooper captured his heart by his humbleness and kindness and the journey began.

“It took off from there,” Rease said.

Someone that knows Cooper contacted him and told him of another veteran in South Alabama. When Rease went to photograph him, he found out another WWII veteran lived across the hall in the retirement community, so he photographed him also.

Someone suggested Rease contact the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola. He was able to locate four WWII veterans there and took their photographs.

“It just kept snowballing,” he said. “More people would see it and tell me of someone they knew or were related to. Now, I’m at 118 veterans so far. I’ve gone from Alabama to Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. I did a road trip in October to Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona.”

Rease said the youngest veteran he has photographed was 92 and others go up from there to 104. He said some of them lied about their age to serve in the war. One was only 14 years old and forged his mother’s signature on the form.

He has photographed the veterans in their homes, in retirement communities, VA homes and churches. His gear is portable, so he can shoot anywhere.

While taking the portraits, Rease also talks with the veterans, asking about themselves, their background and their service. Some wear their uniforms, veteran hats or hold a photo of themselves from that year.

“I don’t request anything specific, but I try to get a picture of them when they were in the service,” he said. “Most of these guys don’t have their old uniforms but most all of them have a baseball cap with ‘WWII veteran’ on it. Some have lots of medals, and some don’t have anything but maybe a few papers showing what they did. It doesn’t matter. I’m not seeking out the ones who have the most medals, but anybody who served. It doesn’t matter what they did, because they all contributed in some way to win the war.”

Rease said he has learned many stories that aren’t written in history books, and to be able to talk to them directly and hear their stories straight from them is amazing.

“It can be hard for them to tell some of the stories, so I don’t press them on things that are tough subjects,” Rease said. “I just kind of let them talk about what they want to talk about. What they did, what their role was, where they served.”

He said they really enjoy it for the most part, and even “Uncle Bookie,” whose real name is Alvin Lopez, later agreed to do it.

June 6, 2019, marked the 75th anniversary of D-Day, and many of the veterans whose portraits he has taken traveled to Normandy to be a part of the celebration. They told him it was a “trip of a lifetime.”

This past Veteran’s Day, The Washington Post featured an article about Rease’s project, and he received over 250 emails from people telling him of more WWII veterans. He is still trying to organize all of his emails and set up as many portraits as he can.

“I can’t get to all of them, but I do plan to make some road trips,” he said. “I went out west recently, so I will probably go up the east coast in the springtime. I’m kind of overwhelmed really, because I’ve got so many leads and so little time.”

Rease has already been contacted by a literary agency about turning his project into a book. He said his plan for now is just to take about 10 of the veterans and do a short write up of each one and send that to the publisher to get things going. He said it probably wouldn’t be ready for publication until sometime in 2022.

He has also been contacted about a possible documentary and said he is hopeful that will happen. A veteran’s organization also contacted him to be their official photographer on the trips the veterans take overseas.

Rease continues to run his photography business and puts as much time into his Portraits of Honor project as he can.

“My wife and I are blessed that we can do what we want to do, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do anything like I have so far.”

Rease doesn’t charge the veterans for the photo session or portraits. He said it’s his passion and his way of saying thank you to them. He provides them with at least one large print of the portrait, plus high-resolution digital files they can use and reproduce as they choose.

He doesn’t have plans to stop the project anytime soon.

“I’ll just keep doing it as long as I can get the veterans who are able to sit for a photograph,” he said.

Since he does this out of his own pocket, he did set up a GoFundMe page on his website. He realized if he was going to keep going with it and branch out to other states and travel longer distances, he would need some financial assistance.

“I thought I would go ahead and try it, and it has brought in enough for me to make a couple of trips and have them paid for completely,” he said. “It’s helped out a lot. I got another boost on that from The Washington Post article. A lot more people were seeing it and contributing to it.”

He is hopeful that the book and documentary will happen, not for him, but to get the veterans more attention. He hopes to reach as many as he can because they won’t be living much longer. Of the 16 million who served in WWII, there are only around 300,000 still living.

“Of those I’ve photographed, I know of 12 who have passed away already, so about 10 percent, and there may be more that I’m not aware of,” he said.

Rease has received a lot of positive feedback, both from the veterans and their families. One of his portraits was used as a photo at one of the veteran’s memorial services, which Rease said was very humbling.

“It means a lot,” he said. “It tells me I did this for a good reason.”

For more information about the project or to donate, visit portraitsofhonor.us.