About Fred Price
I was born and raised in the 25 mile stretch of steel mills and related industries along the Mahoning River in northeast Ohio. The mills spewed smoke and debris into the lungs of residents and workers alike.
The mills polluted the river and the air and the people. It was a place and time when the schools were integrated but the people were not.
Poor people were from many places and they congregated where their language was spoken and stores sold their foods. The first generation of immigrants stayed with their countrymen but later generations mixed and intermarried. Pockets of ethnicity were found throughout the area. Blacks and browns and all kinds of whites were drawn to work in the mills.
Honorably discharged from the peace time army and fresh from the mill I arrived in New York as a young guy where I acquired a career in photography. I was exposed to visual artists, writers and actors and other theater people. It was a time and place that seemed a sea of creativity in which I waded and tried to swim.
People were from all over the world and they brought their food, music, culture and look. I sampled what I could, my horizons expanded and I grew up and attempted to enter the world of art photography. Dragging portfolios to editors, art directors, museum curators, gallery directors and anyone who would look. Some things published and some hung on gallery walls. During this time it was commercial photography and other tasks that made the rent.
Now I aspire to the creation of new work, and making use of my past in exhibits and memoir. With age comes reflection on those numerous creative people, who made my life more interesting and rewarding, and who were from coast to coast and abroad. I have boxes of material waiting for use, in the making of still life, for when I get old or when we get snowed in, whichever comes first.