When most people think of photography, they imagine shots of couple’s on their wedding days, abstract shots of buildings, pictures of animals and plants. It is uncommon to think of photography outside of a news form that focuses on the war. A Morehouse Parish native, however, realized his career by taking photographs overseas during the war.

Credell Bowman, who owns Studio 2001 in Mer Rouge, was born in 1947. He grew up in Bastrop attending Morehouse elementary schools. When he passed elementary school, his family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was there he completed his high school education and decided to continue his education at Grambling University while joining the military.

“I was out of high school going to college. The whole world was new to me,” Bowman said. “I didn’t know what the next step was.”

He choose the Air Force to look further into, because he felt out of all the branches, he could come out with a career.

“The men asked me what I can do,” Bowman said. “I said nothing. He gave me a list of 500 job titles. I put my hand down on photography.”

The choice was random but led to his position in the Air Force. He started taking classes in Denver, Colorado in 1968 before heading to the Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio for photography training.
“It was fantastic,” he said of this training. Bowman remembers learning about the dark room, how to shoot the pictures, how to process film and how to clean the camera.

After training, he received orders to go to the headquarters in Saigon, Vietnam. This is when he began his two years of duty as a war photographer from 1970 to 1972.

When he arrived, Korea needed someone that could develop film. So, he started doing that. He also began taking pictures while in Korea.

“The only thing that stood out is when a plane went down in the Red Sea,” Bowman said. “I was very scared. The water goes out and comes back in [quickly].”

The plane that went down was in the sand; Bowman was standing on the sand taking pictures with other military men standing around. He noticed while taking pictures that several helicopters were circling above the area. When he asked the general what the helicopters were doing, Bowman received a frightening reply.
“If you don’t hurry up and shoot, [that water] it’ll be over our heads,” the general said.

Photos like these were sent off to military headquarters and then the Pentagon for them to do “what they had to do with it.”

“When I went out, I went with other military people. They had guns; I had a camera,” Bowman said. “I was taking pictures from helicopters. You never knew what you were going to do from day to day.”

Those photographs taken from the helicopters, where Bowman was strapped down and shooting from, were used to determine if enemy camps were set up below the brush.

He said after taking these pictures, they would head back and have them developed. Once developed, the pictures would be zoomed in on to find out what was below.

Bowman had a few scares while overseas due to North Korea infiltrating South Korea and the random shots out of the flying helicopters.

“I was shot at. They took care of [me though]. I shot [the pictures] and shot fast and got out of there,” he said. “I though I’d never come home until I got home, and I said thank you Jesus.”

When he got back to America, he finished up his final year of service at a base in Texas.

After finishing his time with the Air Force, Bowman was tired of photography and started working at GE in the stock room. This became a bore to him; so, he became the company’s photographer.

He eventually moved back to Mer Rouge and opened Studio 2001. Bowman also has a non-profit group called Training the Disadvantaged. He teaches photography to school children through the program.

He is married to Marvey Bowman and has one daughter, Miche Aaron.