Frank Ward Bio and Links

Over forty years ago my video professor at UMass offered me a summer job creating slide shows. I asked for an advance to buy a camera and became a professional.  Soon after that I met a philanthropist who sponsored me for a year while I created slide shows in Asia. I continue to travel in Asia. In 2012, I was a Cultural Envoy in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan for the US Department of State. In 2011, I received the Massachusetts Cultural Council Award for my photography in the former Soviet Union. My mother continues to be amazed that I am a successful photographer.

I am a professor in the Holyoke Community College Visual Art Department, Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA. I have a Masters of Fine Arts degree from Bard College in New York. I have had a National Endowment for the Arts/ New England Foundation for the Arts grant for work with the Puerto Rican community in Holyoke. The Polaroid Foundation and ViewCamera Magazine have awarded my work in Tibet and the Rotary Foundation has funded my photography in India. I have made many trips to the former Yugoslavia with the Friends of Bosnia and the Center for Balkan Development. This work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe.

In 2006, Amherst College Press published “Curious Footprints”, a book of my natural history photographs with an essay by Nancy Pick and an afterword by Ben Lifson. “Lost in Siberia”, a book of my wife Vivian Leskes’ essays, was published in 2011 by Haley’s with a generous sampling of my photographs from the Former Soviet Union. Both books are available through Amazon.

For assignments, prints, exhibitions, publications – contact me directly at fmward@gmail.com.

More of my pictures can be found at:

http://www.photoeye.com/frankward

http://www.socialdocumentary.net/photographer/frankward

http://flickr.com/photos/frankward/

http://jpgmag.com/people/culturalvisions

http://fmward.blogspot.com/