Bill Frej is an award-winning photographer and author who will offer customized photography workshops for photographers at all levels. Bill began his career as an architect and later served as an international development specialist with the Agency for International Development(USAID), living in Indonesia, Poland, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan and traveling extensively in Nepal, Pakistan and Central Asia and, most recently, Mexico and Guatemala. Always with his camera at his side, he has been photographing indigenous people and their environments since the 1970s, documenting the changing lifestyles and architecture of many of the world’s unique and ancient cultures. His photography captures the stunning high peaks and remote mountain ranges of Asia, as well as the cities, living cultures and religious ceremonies in the faraway regions of the Great Himalayan Range, ancient Peru, Cambodia and Thailand, and the jungles of Guatemala and Mexico. 

Bill’s first book, a fine art photography book on Maya ruins and an early Maya explorer and photographer, Teobert Maler, Maya Ruins Revisited: In the Footsteps of Teobert Maler, (Peyton Wright Gallery, Publisher/University of Oklahoma Press, Distributor) was released in 2020. This book has been the recipient of fourteen major awards, including Best Photography Book of 2021 from the Independent Press Award, the International Book Awards, the Foreward Indies Award and the National Indie Excellence Awards; and Silver Medals from the Prix de la Photographie Paris, Next Generation Indie Book Awards, IPPY Independent Publishers Award, and the Moscow International Foto Awards. His second book, Seasons of Ceremonies: Rites and Rituals of Guatemala and Mexico, published by the Museum of New Mexico Press in 2021, is the recipient of fourteen major awards, including five Photography Book of the Year awards. His third book, Travels Across the Roof of the World: A Himalayan Memoir, published by George F. Thompson Publications in October, 2022, has been the recipient of two Silver Medals from the Budapest and Tokyo International Foto Awards and the Silver Medal from the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards. His fourth award-winning book, published by the Museum of New Mexico Press in October 2023 is Blurred Boundaries: Perspectives on Rock Art of the Greater Southwest, with the renowned archaeologist Polly Schaafsma. Bill’s latest book, Unforgotten: Ancient Cities from a Distant Past presents 200 black and white photos of 124 ancient cities in 25 countries across the world. It was published by George F. Thompson Publications in 2025.

Bill is based in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Merida, Yucatan. He has visited nearly 200 Maya ruins in Mexico and Guatemala and has led photography workshops throughout the Maya world. 

www.williamfrejphotography.com

Advance reservations; required, subject to availability