About Jon Kral

Jon Kral (1946-) was raised on the edge of cattle country in Ft. Pierce, FL.

He developed a love for the land and its heritage which led him to begin seriously documenting it in 1983. That work eventually became his first book, CRACKER; FLORIDA'S ENDURING COWBOYS. Already a photojournalist on the international scene, Kral chased down Saddam's SCUD missiles during the (first) Gulf War and dodged stones and rubber bullets during the Intifada in Jerusalem and the West Bank. His documentation of the inhumane prison conditions in Caracas, Venezuela led to the closing of one maximum security facility and earned him a Pulitzer Prize finalist ranking. His work infiltrating and documenting youth gangs in the South yielded him the respected Robert F. Kennedy Award.

Kral recently retired from the newspaper business, an award-winning 32-year veteran street shooter, five-time Pulitzer nominee, with 17 years at The Miami Herald, to focus on his freelance career.

Kral lives in Boone, North Carolina.