Frank P. (Tico) Herrera was born during the Battle of Britain to Mary Betty Parker and Francisco Herrera y Sanchez in Beckley, West Virginia. After the war, the family moved to Morgantown, where Francisco began a career as a professor at West Virginia University with young Frankie to grow up in a bifurcated academic/rural West Virginia world. At college, he fell under the spell of Fellini's use of black and white and Faulkner's articulate language. A friend committed suicide leaving him a Voigtlander Vitessa. Essentially that was it for Frank. After a short career as a Spanish instructor, he became a full-time photographer in 1970, and is still doing so.