William Joshua “Billie” Seamans was born in Dermott, Desha County, Arkansas, on May 22, 1921.

After graduating from high school in McGehee, Arkansas, Seamans joined the United States Army Air Corps during World War II and was stationed in Italy. He completed fifty missions over Africa and Germany as a ball-turret gunner and later as a photographer on B-17 bombers. Upon returning to the States in 1944, Seamans attended Arkansas A&M in Monticello on the GI Bill, then began working as a portrait photographer for Drummond Studio in McGehee. After a year there, Seamans became a freelance photographer and worked primarily for the International Harvester Company for the next twenty years. When the company broke up, Seamans opened his own photography studio, where he worked until 2008.

Seamans received the Professional Photographers of America National Award in 1985 and the Governor's Lifetime Achievement Award from the Arkansas Arts Council in 2013.

Seamans passed away on September 16, 2018.

 
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