Jeff Whitten, correspondent
If positivity was a commodity, longtime Bryan County Schools bus driver and CDL instructor J.J. Bellemare might corner the market.
The seemingly always upbeat Bellemare is pretty good with a camera, too.
A two-time winner of School Bus Fleet magazine’s Photo-of-the-Year contest – Bellemare nabbed top honors in 2021 and 2022 for his photography – he recently earned Honorable Mention in the 2025 contest for a photo he took of his school bus at sunrise on Mill Hill Road in the Strathy Hall subdivision.
Bellemare, a former Canadian Army artillery officer, has a day job as both a bus driver and, since 2016, a driving instructor who has taught many of his current co-workers how to drive a school bus. And it’s been a long trip from his hometown of Shawnigan in British Columbia, a province of Canada, to where he is now, in terms of more than just distance.
“I have had other careers before,” he said. “Military, public school teacher, tour guide, correction officer. It was not until I was in my early 40s before I discovered my passion for school bus driving. I became a school bus driver in 2013, not really knowing what I was getting into.”
Yet Bellemare said it didn’t take him long to discover getting behind the wheel of a big yellow bus was a great fit for his temperament.
“It provides a good balance in my life. I am not doing backbreaking work 24/7. I am not stuck in a cubicle all day, either. It’s a huge responsibility and I take pride in it,” he said.
And then there’s the photography. “I guess I have felt the urge to (take photos) for the longest time,” Bellemare said. “People around me noticed. They joke about it. I love looking at coffee table books. I like capturing a particular moment in time, landmark, person, expression. I like to document it, knowing that it’s ephemeral.”
Entirely self-taught, Bellemare said he has been taking photos for as long as he can remember.
“I never had any professional training,” he added. “Therefore I made tons of mistakes. Sometimes I learn from my mistakes, so I like to think that I somewhat improved over time.”
He has. Take a minute to look through Bellemare’s photos and you understand why he wins awards. He’s got an eye for what makes a photo stand out.
“Anything compelling,” can become an inspiration for his photos. “If I see something visually appealing, I want to capture the moment.”
As for what makes a good photo, Bellemare said it’s subjective.
“You and I could look at a dozen photos and we might not completely agree on how they rank,” he said. “I think it is important to try. Sometimes I take hundreds of shots. I delete most of them and when I am lucky, a few images are worth keeping.”
While Bellemare mostly posts his photos on the Mohawk Park community page on Facebook, he began in 2021 submitting his work to School Bus Magazine, a California-based trade publication with more than 28,000 subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, according to its website, and a much larger online audience. ‘ “I won in 2021 and 2022, then I received honorable mention this year,” he said. “The truth of the matter is that sometimes I send photos thinking my entry is a shoo-in and never hear back. Sometimes I am not so sure that my material is impressive. I send it anyway and make the cut.”
Surprisingly, perhaps, Bellemare takes his photos with his cell phone – currently an iPhone 15 Pro. And he’s thought more than once about shooting professionally.
“It crossed my mind several times,” Bellemare said. “I would need to get more serious about it though. I guess I just need to get my act together at one point and be more focused in pursuing professional photography.”
In the meantime, there’s always something to take a photo of – even if it’s just his dogs, Hershey, Roxy and Bella at the Mohawk Lake Bark Park.
“Anytime I feel like there is a moment to capture, I want to take a photo,” Bellemare said. “I love taking photos of dogs. These are by far my favorite subjects.”
Whitten is a correspondent for the News.