Brian Frank – Last Round
Ronnie Britt, also known as the “War Frog”, is a 44 year-old mixed martial arts fighter in Des Moines. Outside of the cage he delivers oxygen and medical supplies, and is a quiet, easy-going fellow. Inside the cage, he is a tough competitor that uses choke holds to make his adversaries submit, or “tap out.” Over the years, he has earned a grass-roots, blue-collar following that has made him one of the most popular fighters around, and I was fortunate enough to follow him around for about seven weeks as he trained for his last fight.
Bio
A few years ago, I was sitting in my cubicle color correcting the photo of a $70,000 kitchen to match the correct shade of lemon yellow for a magazine, when I realized that there was more to life than this. I needed to find a way to get out of the cubicle. I had taken some photography classes when I was younger, but hadn’t touched a camera in years. It was then that I decided to start learning again.
I began taking classes at a local community college – first taking a basic film course, then digital – one at a time as my work would allow. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with photography. Photojournalism wasn’t even in the back of my mind. The reports from New Orleans on the first anniversary of the floods hit me hard. I was angry and embarrassed that we allowed the residents of that city to be ignored. That night I booked a flight to spend a week talking to people and photographing the city, with the hopes of creating a book. Although nothing came of that project, the experience got me hooked.
I was born in 1972 in St. Paul, Minnesota and currently live in West Des Moines, Iowa. I still color correct images of expensive homes. It gives me ideas for what my house should be like when I hit the lottery. Now be quiet, they’re about to announce the numbers.
Photographs: Brian Frank
Website: http://bfrankphoto.com
Editor’s Note: at the photographer’s request, the comments are wide open….no limit
Many thanks… david alan harvey
This comment isn’t about the essay, but I’ll try my luck anyways… Where did you find that html-code (I’m guessing javascript?) so you can have several photographs available on the front of your website, so each time you refresh the browser there is a new one? I could really need it myself…
The core of my site is done in Adobe GoLive, and it was a plug-in that entered the code. It allows for six images-all of which need to reside in the main directory of your site and have the exact dimensions. I named the images generic names so I could easily replace them anytime I wanted. Here’s the code. I don’t know if you can simply drop this into the header of your page below the stylesheets code.
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Whoops. Can’t paste the code. sending you an email.
Would have liked to see the crowd more, just for the narrative’s sake, but I guess it’s difficult when you had to have Ronnie in every shot.
Mark, I’ve heard that from a few different people, and I agree. I am going to make a conscious effort as I move forward with shooting other fighters and events. Thanks.