THOMAS MICHAEL ALLEMAN was born and raised in Detroit, where his father was a traveling salesman and his mother was a ceramic artist. He graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in English Literature.
During a fifteen-year newspaper career, Tom was a frequent winner of distinctions from the National Press Photographer’s Association, as well as being named California Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 1995 and Los Angeles Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 1996.
As a magazine freelancer, Tom’s pictures have been published regularly in Time, People, Business Week, Smithsonian, and National Geographic Traveler, and have also appeared in US News & World Report, Brandweek, Sunset, Harper’s and Travel Holiday. He's shot covers for Chief Executive, Priorty, Acoustic Guitar, Time for Kids, Diverse, and Library Journal.
Tom exhibited Social Studies, an earlier body of work, widely in Southern California. He’s currently finishing Sunshine & Noir, a book-length collection of black-and-white “urban landscapes” made in the neighborhoods of Los Angeles, which had it’s solo debut at the Afterimage Gallery in Dallas in April, 2006, and has since been exhibited at the Robin Rice Gallery in New York City, the Blue Sky Galery in Portland, OR, and at the XianShaWan Photography Festwival in Inner Mongloia, China.