The lucky dad of a mischievous red headed three year old son, John and his beautiful wife, Becky own and operate J & B Childress Photography in downtown Memphis. However, his journey in life has had many bumps, but has landed him in the happy family business he has today.
Growing up in rural Mississippi, John graduated Independence High School in 1990 and attended Northwest Junior College seeking a degree in fine art. After two years of study, he needed an additional math credit to take before he could move on to a major university; however, he had taken every fine art class they had at NWCC. Not wanting to attend school without taking some sort of art class, John’s teacher suggested he take some design classes at the vo-tech department. There he was introduced to the Mac desktop computer and he immediately saw the further…. art with infinite control.
During his break in the summer of 1993, John took a job at Fast Signs as a designer and never looked back. Later, as a designer for Southern College of Optometry, where he learned the fundamentals of web design and hand coded their first website. Taking a job at Screen Procees, one of the first companys’ to implement large format inkjet technology, John worked his way to Art Director, John was in charge “of all things art” and as head tech, he was certified to repair and keep the color span printers running.
In 1998, John and a photographer friend, Jody started a photography company, DigiPix as a side project. John was in charge of the tech/Photoshop side and Jody was to handle the photography side. The partnership proved to be extremely stressful and the two split up, leaving John with a large investment in photography equipment. Quick to bounce back, John began learning everything he could about photography. John and Jody had started negotiations to take Santa photos for a local charity, TWIGS a fund raising arm of Le Bonheur Children's Hospital and shortly after the split, John sealed the deal. Now John had to learn how to be a photographer really fast. At the time, The Enchanted Forest was 10 days, eventually growing to a full 5 weeks.
About this same time, John met the love of his life, Becky. A college going, pageant winning, baton twirling champion, Becky captured John’s eyes quickly. John wanting to spend more time with Becky, decided to take a big leap of faith and take on DigiPix full time. John ran DigiPix out of his rented house doing graphics and some small phot