J.B. Forbes Photography

About the Author

Forbes on top of the iron beams for the new America’s Center in downtown St. Louis, May 5, 1995.

J.B. Forbes’ interest in photography may have started at a young age in Prairie Village, Kansas, when his dad brought home an early Polaroid camera.

His dad, James Forbes, Sr., kept the first photo his son made with the camera – a close-up of a rose.

As sports editor for his high school newspaper, Forbes led his cross-country team to a state title. He attended the University of Kansas partially because he wanted to run with his boyhood hero – fellow Kansan, Olympian and world record holder Jim Ryun. A photojournalism major, Ryun introduced him to instructors at KU’s William Allen White School of Journalism.

Upon graduation in 1972, he worked for the Parsons (Kansas) Sun and the now defunct Miami (Florida) News. 

Forbes joined the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1975, first as a photojournalist, later serving as Director of Photography and Chief Photographer. He specialized in sports photography early for the Post-Dispatch and freelanced for the Sporting News. 

Forbes traveled to 27 countries and most of the lower 48 states for the Post-Dispatch, covering wars, earthquakes, medical missions, current events, conflicts and sporting events. He has been honored by the National Press Photographers Association four times as Regional Photographer of the Year, as well as the Missouri Interscholastic Press Association, Amnesty International, the National Headliner Public Service Award, and the Society of News Design. 

Forbes (center) on a Post-Dispatch trip to Honduras and Nicaragua with reporter Bob Adams from March – May of 1986.
Forbes, accompanying a route clearing mission on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013, by the 1138th Engineering Company of the Missouri National Guard in Afghanistan.

Forbes, and the rest of the staff, covered Kirkwood City Hall shootings in 2008 that won national awards. In 2015, he and photo staff won the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Michael Brown shooting and protests in Ferguson, Missouri.

Forbes was inducted into the Missouri Photojournalism Hall of Fame in 2011 and the St. Louis Media Hall of Fame in 2018. Also in 2018, he received the first ever Distinguished Alumni Award by Kansas University’s William Allen White School of Journalism. 

He wrapped up his career by covering the St. Louis Blues Stanley Cup run, covering twenty-three straight playoff hockey games, including the final championship game in Boston in 2019.

Forbes and his wife Debbie sold their horse farm in Fenton, Missouri, after 34 years and moved to Cedar Hill, Missouri in 2019. He retired in 2020.

In 2026, he was again inducted into the St. Louis Media Hall of Fame, this time as a member of the Pulitzer Prize winning staff from 2014.

Forbes and his wife, Debbie, at the Pulitzer presentation in New York.
Forbes at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis in 2019.