Stock Collection: 15,000 - 90,000 photos

General Subject Areas: With over thirty years as a professional photographer, Raymond Bial has built an impressive file of more than 20,000 color slides, 3,000 medium-format color transparencies, and 2,500 black-and-white photographs. Blending documentary and lyrical elements, these stock images include portraits, landscapes, still lifes, architectural work, and other type of photography in which Raymond is quite versatile. His distinctive photographs emphasize farming, agriculture and rural life in the United States and Canada, the, Amish, and many other subjects. He has many photographs of ethnic groups, Native Americans, social and cultural history, and other historical subjects, including frontier life, the Shakers, the Underground Railroad, and many other categories. His work is widely used by major publishers for both textbooks and trade books, and in major advertising campaigns and national magazines. Raymond Bial Photograph. It is important to Raymond to provide good value in his work, including his stock photography. Photo buyers seem to be very pleased with the depth, breadth and quality of his files.

Awards: Raymond Bial's books have received numerous awards from the American Library Association, Children's Book Council, and many other organizations. Listed below are just a few of the most notable honors: Tenement: Immigrant Life on the Lower East Side selected as an Orbis Pictus Honor book as one of the best nonfiction books for children With Needle and Thread chosen as an Orbis Pictus Honor book as one of the best nonfiction books for children A Handful of Dirt received the John Burroughs Award as one of the best environmental books for children Ghost Towns of the American West and The Pueblo have both been chosen for Spur awards by Western Writers of America as best children's books about the American West. The Underground Railroad named one of the “25 Top Picks” for Black History Month in 1996. Portrait of a Farm Family selected as an “Editor's Choice” by Booklist as one of the best children's books of 1995. Also, Ohio Farm Bureau's Children's Literature Award as the most outstanding children's book with an agricultural theme. Amish Home selected as an American Library Association Notable Children's Book in 1994. Amish Home received a “Parents' Choice” book by the Parents' Choice Foundation as the best nonfiction paperback book for children. Children's books frequently selected as outstanding/notable trade books by the Children's Book Council. “Certificate of Commendation,” American Association for State and Local History, 1986 “Writer's Choice” selection, National Endowment for the Arts and the Pushcart Foundation, for First Frost as one of the finest books published by independent literary presses, 1986 Award of Superior Achievement, Illinois State Historical Society, 1985 Historian of the Year, Champaign County, Illinois, 1984

Books / Publication Credits: More than 80 books published, most recently Lifeways, a series about Native American people, Tenement: Immigrant Life on the Lower East Side, and Where Washington Walked. See webpage for additional titles: www.raybial.com

Geographic Coverage: United States and Canada

Future Travel: New York City and the American West.

Other services: Assignment photography, advertising photography, and freelance writing assignments.

Affiliations: Author's Guild Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI)

Typical Stock Photo Examples:
Native Americans/American Indians
Raymond has intensely photographed 27 Native American tribes in the United States and Canada for Lifeways, a critically-acclaimed series of books published by Marshall Cavendish. On each assignment, he had made hundreds of high-quality 35mm slides, including landscapes, portraits, traditional dwellings and reservation life today. Tribes include Apache, Arapaho, Blackfeet, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Choctaw, Chumash, Comanche, Cree, Crow, Delaware, Haida, Huron, Iroquois, Mandan, Menominee, Navajo, Nez Perce, Ojibwe, Powhatan, Pueblo, Seminole, Shawnee, Shoshone, Sioux, Tlingit, Wampanoag.

Farming, Agriculture, and Rural Life

Several thousand 35mm slides from major shoots, notably for books: Corn Belt Harvest, County Fair, and Portrait of a Farm Family. Coverage: all aspects of growing corn (planting, cultivation, harvest); county fairs (rides, livestock exhibitions, grandstand events, more); dairy farming (milking, raising calves, feeding livestock). Subjects include farm families, barns, hay baling, soybean harvest, etc. These collections include many poignant images.

Amish

Several hundred sensitive photographs of the Amish in Illinois and Indiana from two acclaimed books: Amish Home and Visit to Amish Country. (These do NOT include portraits, because the Amish do not allow photographs of themselves or their children.) Subjects covered include: buggies, horses, quilts, clothing, homes, barns, country roads, schools, businesses, farms, gardens.

Ghost Towns, Cowboy Towns, and the American West
Raymond's files include over 2, 000 slides from published books (Ghost Towns of the American West, Cow Towns, and others) showing ghost towns, cow towns, and mining camps and towns in the American West (notably in Kansas, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona). Storefronts, main streets, portraits and scenics of gold mines, saloons, drugstores, mercantiles, general stores, livery stables, blacksmith shops, sheriff's office, gallows and coffins.

American Frontier and Pioneer Life
About 3, 000 photographs of virtually every aspect of frontier and pioneer life from books: Frontier Home, Where Lincoln Walked , and others. Log cabins, hearths, fireplaces, chimneys, furniture, cooking utensils, gardens, farm fields. Many household objects and tools, including firearms, spinning wheels, homemade soap, candles. Also excellent slides of shops, artisans and craftsmen, including coopers, potters, weavers, shoemakers.

American History
Among Raymond's favorite and most popular subjects are those key aspects of American history on which he has published books, including pioneer and frontier life, African-American history (the Underground Railroad, plantation life and slave quarters); American education (one-room schools): and a cultural history of quilts. For each of these projects, he has several hundred exquisite photographs documenting virtually every aspect of the subject.

American Ethnic and Cultural Groups
Published books on utopian groups, notably the Amish in Illinois and Indiana, Shakers in Kentucky, and the Mormons in Nauvoo, Illinois, as well as the Cajuns of Louisiana. Also immigrant life on the Lower East Side of New York City. For each of these subjects, Raymond has several hundred crisp, sensitive photographs.

In terms of geographic regions, Raymond has substantial work from the following states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming. In Canada: Alberta, Ontario, Quebec.

His files include a sizeable number of fine black-and-white portraits, still lifes and landscapes from small towns. These rare, captivating photographs have been especially popular in major advertising campaigns.,,,