Jemal Countess enters his 33rd year as professional photographer and photojournalist. Jemal landed his first professional job in 1990 for the Community News, a Washington DC-based newspaper published by Howard University. Upon graduation in 1992, Jemal began a long stint as a music and concert shooter while working on news and documentary projects that eventually carried him to New York City in 1994. In 2003 Jemal joined WireImage photo agency, becoming a staff in 2005 and a staffer for Getty Images in 2007. From 2007 to 2015, Jemal covered celebrity, corporate, and hard news events in America before relocating to Ethiopia in 2015. Jemal covered regional and international news stories in Africa and North America. In 2019, Jemal returned to the U.S. to the Washington D.C. area and began to covering politics and breaking news in Washington D.C.. Jemal devotes his personal time to completing his current book and documentary projects on Christianity and Judaism in the 21st century.