James William "Ike" Altgens was born in Dallas on 28th April, 1919. After graduating from North Dallas High School he joined Associated Press. He worked originally as a journalist but in 1940 he was assigned to work in the wirephoto office.

During the Second World War he joined the United States Coast Guard. In 1945 he rejoined Associated Press as a photographer. He was also a part-time actor and model.

On 22nd November, 1963, Altgens was assigned to take photographs of President John F. Kennedy on his visit to Dallas. Altgens originally intended to position himself on the triple overpass. However, the police refused him permission to do this and so he decided to take up a position in Dealey Plaza instead. While taking his fifth photograph he heard a "burst of noise that he thought was firecrackers." He saw Kennedy's put his hands up to his throat. He told Richard B. Task: "I had pre-focused, had my hand on the trigger, but when JFK's head exploded, sending substance in my direction, I virtually became paralyzed. This was such a shock to me that I never did press the trigger on the camera... To have a President shot to death right in front of you and keep your cool and do what you're supposed to do - I'm not real sure that the most seasoned photographers would be able to do it... There is no excuse for this. I should have made the picture that I was set up to make. And I didn't do it."

Altgens told the Warren Commission that he followed officers and spectators towards the grassy knoll. "I wanted to come over and get a picture of the guy - if they had such a person in custody." When it was clear an arrest was not going to be made he ran to the Associated Press offices in the Dallas News Building on Houston Street. Altgens telephoned his editor with the news the president had been shot: "I saw it. There was blood on his face. Mrs Kennedy jumped up and grabbed him... The motorcade raced onto the freeway." Altgens's photograph of Secret Service agent, Clint Hill, climbing over the back of Kennedy's limousine was transmitted twenty-five minutes after the shooting and appeared in newspapers all over the world the following day.

Altgens left the Associated Press in 1979. He then went to work on display advertising for the Ford Motor Company. He was willing to be interviewed by assassination researchers but remained a strong supporter of the lone-gunman theory.

On 12th December, 1995, James Altgens and his wife were found dead in separate rooms in their home in Dallas. Kennedy researcher, John Kelin, argued that "the couple died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty furnace."