Throughout her photographic career, she worked at home and abroad for these large publications. When she grew tired of fashion photography and fluctuating between contracts with "Vogue" and "Harper’s Bazaar," she continued her interest in active women and sports and was hired as the first woman on the staff of "Sports Illustrated" in 1953, and continued to be one of very few female sport photographers for several decades. In later work she concentrated on photographing women from all walks of life, often as a commentary on the human condition. Her iconic 1944 photograph previously used for book illustration, "My Shadow", of a boy with outstretched arms admiring his long shadow on the sea sand, was selected by Edward Steichen for the world-touring exhibition "The Family of Man" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, that was seen by 9 million visitors. In 1957 the photograph was used for the cover of a popular psychology text. In 1963 an entire feature in Life magazine was devoted to photographs of 'The Loving Embrace' from across her career. In 1966 "Life" magazine paid tribute to her in a page 3 editorial profile headed 'Patrician Photographer of a Vanishing Age'. Frissell died of Alzheimer's disease on April 17, 1988, in a Long Island nursing home. Her husband, Francis M. Bacon 3rd, of Bacon, Stevenson & Company, predeceased her. She was survived by her daughter Sidney, and her son Varick. The collection of her photos in the Library of Congress contains around 340,000 images, and because of its size is not completely available to the public. She and her husband donated her archive of film negatives in 1971.