PARIS LEE GRAY, 44 Newspaper photographer
Paris Lee Gray, a newspaper photographer who began at the Afro American in his native Baltimore, died Sunday of gastric and colon cancer at his home in Wenonah, N.J. He was 44.
A 1980 graduate of Walbrook High School, Mr. Gray was studying design at the Maryland Institute College of Art when he took a photography class and decided on a career change, according to his wife, the former Gloria E. House.
He became an intern and for three years a full-time staffer at the Afro, then worked for the Philadelphia Tribune. In 1994, he was hired by the Courier-Post in New Jersey. His editors there nominated Mr. Gray for a Pulitzer Prize for a photograph he took at a funeral.