James Fortune is a noted rock photographer who grew up in Southern California, before eventually moving to Virginia. In 1966, he attended Los Angeles Pierce College in Woodland Hills, CA, becoming photo editor of their college weekly newspaper called “The Roundup.”

His professional career began later than year when he took a photograph during the LA riots of hippy protestors on top of a bus in West Hollywood. He sold the shot that evening to United Press International and the next day the photograph ran on the front page of major US and international newspapers, and became regarded as an iconic image of the times.