Bill Frakes
Bill Frakes
Type of Photography:
Sports, Documentary, Advertising, Photojournalism
Favorite Camera and Lens:
The Nikon D3s with the Nikkor 600 mm f/4
Favorite Tripod set:
504HD head + 536 tripod
City – Country:
Miami, FL, USA
Awards:
I won the Newspaper Photographer of the Year award in the prestigious Pictures of the Year competition. I was a member of the Miami Herald staff that won the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of Hurricane Andrew . I was a honored by the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards for reporting on the disadvantaged and by the Overseas Press club for distinguished foreign reporting. I have been awarded the Gold Medal by World Press Photo. I have received hundreds of national and international awards for my work.
Publications: Virtually every general interest publication in the world including Sports Illustrated. Time. Newsweek. New York Times. Geo. National Geographic. Stern. Associated Press. Reuter. EPA
Website:
www.billfrakes.com, www.strawhatvisuals.com
Blog:
strawhatvisuals.blogspot.com
Quote:
I want to make you think and feel.
Product Testimonial:
The Manfrotto supports I use are an extension of me as a photographer. They allow me to work seamlessly with photo and video and create images I couldn’t otherwise make.
Camera equipment: Nikon D3S, D3, D3X, D700, D300S, D300, D70 camera bodies. Nikkor lenses 10-24 f 3.5 ,14-24 f 2.8, 14 f 2.8 , 24- 70 f 2.8, 50 f 1.2, 50 f 1.4, 70-200 f 2.8, 200 f2, 300 f2.8, 70-300 f 4.5-5.6, 400 f 2.8, 500 f 5, 600 f 4.0
Lighting Equipment:
SB 800, SB 900 Elinchrome Rangers, Elinchrome Quadras, Elinchrome Monoblocks 500, 600, 1200 Chimera Triolets
BIOGRAPHY
My mother was a very practical, hard working, straightforward woman with a keen eye, and a great but very quiet sense of humor. We walked everywhere. She would constantly be showing me shapes, shadows, colors, visual ironies. The message wasn’t about art per se but about appreciating what was there, finding the incongruities and the subtleties presented by every day things. My parents were both teachers. Our home was filled with books, music and love. My childhood had a complete absence of fear. Not a lot of money. That brings to me to the second, third and fourth parts of my education. I get so much inspiration from books and music. They are my constant companions. I think the most important thing a photo journalist needs is the ability to fall in love every day. If you can do, you call always make pictures. Growing up without fear allows me to have an open mind about every situation I go into. Deal with what is there. On my eighth birthday we had moved into a new house. It was a Sunday. I know it’s hard to imagine but in that time and place stores weren’t open on Sundays. Mom didn’t have the things she needed to make a cake–no easy way to transport the cold ingredients like butter, milk, eggs during the move. That’s a tough thing to deal with for a Mom, an 8 year old’s birthday and no cake. She knew that my favorite thing was caramel popcorn. She had the stuff to make that. So she made a popcorn cake spelling out my name in cursive writing. I absolutely loved it. Best cake ever. Ten years later she explained how the popcorn cake came to be. She was in a tough spot (didn’t want to be a BAD mom), and not only did she fix the problem she used the resources she had to make what I considered the coolest cake ever. That’s a huge lesson, I try to use it on every assignment. I have worked and studied with some of the best minds and talents in the industry. They have had a huge effect on my professional development. I make photographs because I want to communicate and this is the best medium for me to use to do that. I am a Sports Illustrated Staff Photographer based in Florida. I have traveled to all 50 states and worked in more than 125 countries for a wide variety of editorial and advertising clients like Nike, CocaCola, Champion, Isleworth, Stryker, IBM, Manfrotto, Nikon, Kodak, and Reebok. He has covered ten Olympic games, at least twice that many Super Bowls and Kentucky Derbies. I am always on the go, the 23 or 24 days I spent in Beijing at the Olympics was by far the most consecutive days I’ve slept in the same bed in the last 25 years. I was the 1983 Newspaper Photographer of the Year in the prestigious Pictures of the Year competition. I was a member of the Miami Herald staff that won the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of Hurricane Andrew . I was also honored by the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards for reporting on the disadvantaged and by the Overseas Press club for distinguished foreign reporting. I was awarded the Gold Medal by World Press Photo. He has received hundreds of national and international awards for his work. In 2010 I am serving as a general juror on the World Press Photo panel and is chairing the sports section of the competition. I co-founded Straw Hat Visuals a multi media production company based in North Florida. Straw Hat is principally involved in doing documentary productions for the web and broadcast. We are continuing as well my work directing and producing music videos.
