Photographer Frankie Street, 90

Frankie Street, 90, a photographer known for her portraits of children, died of kidney failure March 26 at Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia, Wash.

For more than 40 years, Mrs. Street ran Frankie Street Portraits from her home in Drexel Hill. Her speciality was large-format photos of infants and children. Shooting with a Hasselblad camera in the parents' homes, she used natural light and positioned babies near their mother so they would feel comfortable, said her daughter, Stephany Ray.

Her mother originated and perfected techniques now common in studio portraiture, Ray said. In the 1960s, Mrs. Street and her daughter gave a photographic demonstration on The Gene London Show, a children's program on WCAU-TV.

Mrs. Street also shot portraits at weddings and bar mitzvahs - her staff took the candid photos - and photographed city leaders. In 1984, her portrait of Mayor W. Wilson Goode was unveiled at his inaugural ball.

Her work was exhibited at the former Blum Department Store in Philadelphia and in banks. She was a member of the Photographic Society of Philadelphia.

Mrs. Street, who operated her portrait business until the late 1990s, took part in the Mummers Parade when she was 72 and 73. "I've always loved it," she told a Philadelphia Daily News reporter in 1990. "I love the strutting and banjos, the fun, the hoo-ha." Mrs. Street accompanied the Liberty Comic Club dressed as the Flash, a comic-book superhero. She made her red costume and painted her face red to match.

Frances "Frankie" Lichenstine grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduated from the New York Institute of Photography. She was a photographer of pathological specimens at Jewish Hospital in Brooklyn before her marriage in 1945 to Maurice Street, a hospital administrator.

In the 1950s, the Streets and another couple, Harry and Freda Hyman, ran Medico Rents in Philadelphia, leasing hospital beds, wheelchairs, iron lungs, and other medical equipment for patients to use in their homes. They also operated two "airbulance" hospital planes.

Mrs. Street's husband died in 1975. She moved to Santa Rosa, Calif., in 2001 to be close to family, and had lived in Yelm, Wash., since 2005.

In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Street is survived by a son, Jules.

The funeral was private.