Meet Freek Bouw of Phrake Photography in Chandler

Today we’d like to introduce you to Freek Bouw.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Freek. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
A Huge baseball fan born near Utrecht in the Netherlands. I was a lousy baseball player, but was a very good batboy for my local team. I went to College in Amsterdam. After College, I worked for an American Company that allowed me to transfer me to the US in 1998. I settled in NJ and met my wife in 1999 on Match.com. In my travels around the country, I was able to visit 28 Major league baseball stadiums. I used point and shoot cameras throughout my travels around the country and the world.

Winter 2011 in NJ, I was traveling during a big snow storm. My wife was unable to start our snowblower and when I came home, my wife notified me that we were moving to Arizona. One year later we packed up the car and moved to Chandler, this was 2012.

In February of 2013, the National Baseball team of the Netherlands held a training camp in Arizona in preparation for the 2013 World Baseball Classic. I attended many of their games against local college teams. This is where my photography story starts taking shape. The photos I took with what I thought was a decent camera were extremely blurry and of very poor quality. So, I purchased my for DSLR camera and started taking photos of players from the Kingdom of the Netherlands (The Netherlands, Curacao, Aruba, St. Maarten). I posted my photos of these players on the Baseball group for Dutch baseball on Facebook and used them to write short articles of their successes.

Early 2017, I was contacted by the Dutch Baseball Federation with an invitation to take photos during the training camp in Arizona for the 2017 World Baseball Classic. I covered the 5 games played against Korean teams training in AZ and Gateway CC. The team then left for Japan to play in the group phase and quarter finals round. the Dutch were successful and qualified for the Semi Final. Prior to the Semi Finals, the team played a practice game against the Dbacks with Greinke on the mound. This was my first credentialed game in AZ.

The Semi Finals took place in Dodger Stadium. WOW, shooting the Dutch National team with all is MLB stars (Simmons LAA, Jansen LAD, Profar TEX, Schoop BAL, Gregorius NYY) at Dodger Stadium and I am on the field taking their photos. Unfortunately, the Kingdom of the Netherlands lost to Puerto Rico in 11 innings but what an experience.

After the WBC, I signed up with 27 Outs Baseball, an online baseball blog and podcast. This enabled me to take photos at 12 MLB games at Chase Field. From a business perspective, I am available for portraits, sports shoots, family, senior pictures etc.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The biggest struggle has been to get credentialed for events, there are not many organizations that can obtain MLB credentialed and they have limited sports to assign photographers to. So most of my photos were taken from the stands until I was able to get credentialed. Getting to know other photographer and the organizations they shoot for was very useful to eventually get noticed.

Please tell us about Phrake Photography.
My photography started out purely as a hobby and a way to keep me connected with baseball in the Netherlands. I have now become a part-time business that provides professional sports photos for amateur and pro athletes. In addition to sports, I also do portraits and family pictures.

Action shots and player portraits are my specialty. I also love giving back by providing photos to the Special Olympics in Arizona.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Baseball at the Haarlem Honkbal Week. This is an international baseball tournament in the town of Haarlem with teams from around the world.

Pricing:

• $120 base fee for 2 hours onsite plus editing, includes all digital .jpg files. Subsequent hours $30
• Mileage is charged 55 cents per mile, round trip from zip 85225, if necessary

Contact Info:

• Address: Chandler, AZ 85225
• Website: phrakephotography.com
• Email: phrakephotography@outlook.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phrakephotography/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/phrakephotography/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/phrakephoto

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