Frank Avanzo first picked up a camera at age 12 in the 9th
grade. It was love at first site so to speak, except he didn’t really
think that what he did with his camera was any good. So he moved on do
different things. In 1984 he joined the US Army and went to paratrooper
school, after graduating went on to the 82nd Airborne Division.
Never forgetting how much he loved taking photographs. After leaving the
service in 1988 he went on to side jobs that were leading nowhere, so he
decided to follow a childhood dream and moved to Orlando Fla. in hopes of
working at "Walt Disney World". He applied and was hired to work in the
entertainment costuming dept for the "Magic Kingdom". It was here that he
learned to work as a costumer for Broadway style shows. He spent 3 years
at WDW working all of the stage and convention shows for "Magic Kingdom
Costuming". In 1993 he left WDW for New York City and Broadway, and was
hired as a full time dresser on "Phantom of the Opera", he worked on the
show for over a year and decided to move on once again. He worked as a
swing dresser for various Broadway shows and eventually landed a job as an
on-set costumer for the ABC soap opera "One Life to Live" and it was here
that photography came back into his life. He was asked to be the on-set
stylist for the photo shoots for the actors on OLTL. It was here that he
got to speak to different photographers about how they approached their
photography.
While working at OLTL he was asked to work on the
Sylvester Stallone feature film "daylight". Since that first film Frank
has worked on over 20 feature films, including "What’s the worst that
could happen" with Danny Devito, "The Debtors" with Randy Quaid, "13 Days"
with Kevin Costner, and "We Were Soldiers" with Mel Gibson and Sam Elliot.
It was on "We Were Soldiers" that Frank and photography met once again,
after taking some digital shots of the stunt sequences he was on the set
to give a few copies to the stunt coordinator when he ran into a still
photographer on the set. He decided to take a chance and show him what he
had shot, the photographer turned to him after looking at the photographs
and told him "to put his camera away because he would put him out of
business" after laughing about it, Frank forgot all about what he had
said, until the next day. One of the producers came up to him and asked
him about the conversation with the photographer, and he said "sure you
mean the 2nd unit stills guy", it was at this time that the
producer told him that the photographer was James Nachtwey, and he wasn’t
just any photographer but a world renowned war photographer who has won
every major photography award there is to win. This changed everything for
Frank because if Jim Nachtwey thought his stuff was good well then maybe
it’s not just a dream after all.
So in the summer of 2001 Frank enrolled at the Rhode
Island School of Design for photography. While taking classes at RISD
Frank met well known commercial photographer Paul Clancy and they became
fast friends, and this friendship turned into a business in October 2002.
Frank Avanzo and Paul Clancy now share a studio in Providence RI. Paul
continues with his commercial photography and Frank has merged his love of
motorcycles with his photography to create a new way of shooting
motorcycles. He also has been working on a calendar based on the pin ups
of the 1940s. Frank also shoots fashion and artistic portraits. He is
currently working on a book of black and white photo art.
Frank’s portrait and fashion style takes from his many
years in the entertainment industry and brings a new connection between
the photographer and model.
