Bill Hitz has been a photographer for as long as he can remember. Living and breathing photography became his lifestyle from a very young age, when he put himself in charge of his family's photos and movies. At the age of six he was already editing the family's 8mm home movies, and by age 11 was already in training in the black & white darkroom.
Having been born in Mexico City, the Hitz family enjoyed a decades-long friendship with the Brehme family. Hugo Brehme was a documentary and landscape German photographer who photographed much of the pristine Mexican countryside, cities and its people, occasionally taking an assignment from National Geographic. Hugo's studio sold much of this work as prints and as post cards for tourists, and Hugo published several books, some of which can still be found on Amazon and eBay. His son, Arno, later took over the Mexico City studio and developed a successful commercial and portrait business. Arno's son, Dennis, also followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather.
Although only amateur photographers, Bill's parents, Julia and Reinhart, were great enablers in always having handy 8mm movie cameras with manual settings, and several types of medium format film cameras. The education Bill enjoyed was not one of automatic snap-shooting but of a carefully studied photography craft. Bill's mother spent her life as a fashion designer in Cuba, as a commercial artist in Mexico, and later as a watercolor artist and instructor in Texas and Virginia.
The friendship and enthusiasm of these two Mexican-German families made a tremendous impact on the young Bill Hitz, who subsequently followed a lifetime calling of photography. At the age of eight, Bill and his family moved to the U.S.
While Bill was not always inclined toward professional photography, a tendency to see life as a series of compositions has always played into his daily life. He is an avid fan of creative cinema, as well as of fine art photography, and the other visual arts.
In previous years, Bill, a pilot since age 16, has specialized in aerial photography, and in 1983 published his first book Informal Portraits for Profit (Avimar Publishing).
More recently, Bill has dedicated his time to his portrait and wedding work in South Florida, as well as development of his blog, Hitz Photo Pro.
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