Jim Lavrakas has been an Anchorage Daily News photographer since January 1981. In his twenty-one years of shooting for the paper he has travelled extensively throughout the state, making photos of fall whaling season in Barrow, numerous Iditarod Sled Dog Races, and a trip to Kodiak to document the lifestyle of renegade “punk monks”. In 1988 he was sent to the Calgary Olympics to cover the three Alaskans competing there. And he recently returned from a week in Salt Lake City covering 2002 Olympic Trials. He loves his job.

He learned photography and darkroom skills from his father at the age of 12, helping his scientist dad with photographic research documentation. Growing up in the dairy farm country of Massachusetts, he started his career in photojournalism as a rural stringer for the local newspaper, the "Lowell Sun".

After graduating from the University of Massachusetts in 1970 he moved to Alaska to find newspaper work. Six years later, after working a variety of jobs, from gandy dancer on the Alaska Railroad to camera salesman, he was hired at the Daily News.

In 1988 he was awarded the Joseph Costa Award from Ball State University for taking the best courtroom photograph in the nation. In 1989 he was part of the Daily News team effort that won the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service for a series of stories, called "A People in Peril", dealing with alcoholism and self-destructive behavior of Alaska Natives. He has won two Wilbur Awards for stories documenting religious lifestyles in the secular media.

He is a member of the Alaska Press Club and the National Press Photographers Association of which he was the Associate Director for the region that includes Alaska.

As a member of the Alaska Press Club, he has served on the governing board, and has periodically given seminars at its yearly "JWeek" on a variety of topics focusing on producing better photographs for publication. He has embraced digital photography and its application to the newspaper business.

Now married to Ruth, Jim has 20-year-old twin sons, Nick and Gabe, from a previous marriage.