Surrounded by bold, colorful costumes and swirling smoke from loud machines, Jerry Jambazian focused his camera on a toddler in a bright dinosaur costume. With quick clicks of his shutter, Jambazian caught the child’s wide smile as she posed for a picture at Live Oak Park.
“I’ve been dubbed the historian of Temple City,” Jambazian said. “I like that because there’s really nobody doing that anymore. That’s the legacy I want to leave when I’m gone.”
For 20 years, Jambazian has documented school events and recorded city council meetings for the community to view and download. Jambazian now devotes his time to running his own website, templecityphotos.com. Every year, he takes over 90,000 photos of the community, capturing the spirit of the city and the school district.
“My greatest joy is working with the school district,” Jambazian said. “They welcome me on their campus and I think they have great programs and great students that I love filming. I feel like Temple City has given my family a good education and I want to give back to the community.”
Jambazian likes to stay in Temple City when doing shoots and plans his photo collections beforehand. Each week, he keeps a calendar on his website to notify people of events he will be attending. At community events, he shoots in a variety of styles.
“One thing I’ve learned to do is to tell a story in my photography,” Jambazian said. “Sometimes I’ll have people pose or sometimes it will be a random shot but I don’t take pictures of the back of people’s heads. It doesn’t say anything or tell a story.”
In addition to taking photos of city events, Jambazian is an active community member. He has served as Temple City Chamber of Commerce President in 1975, Temple City Tennis Club President in 1984 and as a Temple City Kiwanis member for more than 49 years.
In the early 90s, Jambazian served on the committee to build the Performing Art Pavilion at Temple City Park. He was the Grand Marshall of the 2011 Camellia Festival Parade and received the Golden Apple Award and the PTA Founders Award from the school district.
Because his website can only hold months’ worth of content, Jambazian would like funds to increase the storage on his server to hold 10 years of photos.
“I plan on continuing it until God takes me home,” Jambazian said. “Nothing gives me more pleasure than creating memories for a lifetime.”