Bed-Stuy Photographer Honored For 'Inspiring America'

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — Russell Frederick finds inspiration on the streets of Bed-Stuy, where he has been making photographs for over 20 years.

Now, he inspires America.

Frederick was featured on NBC's Inspiring America, an ongoing program telling the story of "remarkable individuals who reminded us of the healing power of community and connection."

The self-taught photographer has that in spades, telling NBC News’ Rehema Ellis that he believes his images can "shift perspectives."

"The camera is such a powerful tool," Frederick told NBC while he walked the streets of Bed-Stuy with his Hasselblad 500-series medium-format camera.

First released in 1957, it is regarded as one of the finest mechanical cameras ever made, capturing distinctive square images over a half century before the rise of Instagram.

He's been working on a book since 1999 about Bed-Stuy and its residents, mostly using the nearly four-pound camera.

"There is a strong sense of solidarity in the community," he told Patch in 2011, "we don’t own much, but we take extreme pride in what we do own."

His work has been published in the New York Times, Washington Post Magazine, NPR, Ebony, Numéro, The Daily Beast, Slate and many others.

But recently, Frederick fell into some bad news about his health.

After a string of eye surgeries to repair a detached retina, he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of glaucoma, losing vision in one eye, he told BK Reader this past fall, with the other eye retaining only limited vision.

"I thought my life was over," he told NBC.

But Frederick told BK Reader that he got back to making images after a brief period of mourning, adapting his techniques to include digital and autofocus cameras to continue working.

"I lost my sight but not my vision," Frederick told NBC.

He said that despite the fear and trembling that comes along with suddenly finding oneself interacting with the word through a drastically different experience, Frederick told BK Reader, he made a commitment to his pictures. And to Bed-Stuy.

“When you find out you have an issue you can’t fix it’s the scariest shit ever, but I am determined," Frederick told BK Reader. “I have a responsibility to all those people who trusted me with their image.”