Career
His photography has been published in Life, Esquire, Rolling Stone, Town & Country, and The New York Times Magazine. After joining the United States. Army (3rd Armored Division), Lee began working as a photographer in 1965 for the Stars & Stripes (newspaper). In 1966 the Department of Defense and the National Press Photographers Association named him United States. Military Photographer of the Year.
This led to a job as a photojournalist with Life magazine where during the summer of 1967 Lee captured images of the civil rights movement in Detroit and Newark.
In Newark, he captured the image of a bleeding 12-year-old Joe Bass, who had been caught in the cross fire as a police officer shot looter Billy Furr. This image became the cover of Life magazine, July 28, 1967, Lee"s first.
Over the next seven years Lee would freelance for Esquire, Harper"s Bazaar, Town & Country, Rolling Stone, the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Vogue, Mother Jones, Mississippi magazine, London Records, Columbia Records, The Sunday Times magazine, the World Telegraph and numerous other publications. In 1972, while working for the photography department at the University of Iowa Journalism School, Lee founded the Iowa Photographers" Workshop.
After a brief period in Los Angeles and a long illness, Lee directed his attention to teaching art and filmmaking.
Lee became an influential and driving force in the Tampa art scene. Founding the Artists and Writers Trust and the Florida Photographer"s Workshop and co-founded the annual Artists and Writers Balliol Around 1990, Lee returned to freelance photography full-time.
In August 2003, Lee suffered a severe stroke that left his left side paralyzed.
While some recovery has occurred, as of September 2008, he is still resident in a nursing home.