MPW.76 - Issue I

MPW.76

RANGEFINDER

Volume 76 - Issue I

Photo by Leslie Jacobs | MPW.39 | Caruthersville, 1987

Meet Your MPW.76 Faculty

By Bailey Stover

TEAM OKAMOTO

This team is named after Yoichi Okamoto, who was a faculty member during the beginning years of the Missouri Photo Workshop. Okamoto was also the first official U.S. presidential photographer. Under Lyndon B. Johnson, he made images of the President of the United States that were more candid than had been previously permitted. Okamoto made an estimated 675,000 photographs during the Johnson presidency.

MPW.76 faculty members for Team Okamoto are Kim Komenich and Becky Lebowitz Hanger.

Komenich is an associate professor and head of the photojournalism sequence at San Francisco State University. He has taught photojournalism and documentary photography since 1987. Among numerous other accolades, Komenich was awarded the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Spot News Photography for photographs of the 1986 Philippine “People Power” Revolution he made while on assignment for Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner. His project “Revolution Revisited” is part of an ongoing re-examination of the Philippine People Power revolution which includes a 2016 book and upcoming 70-minute documentary film as well as exhibition tours in the Philippines and the U.S.

A long-time photo editor in the New York Times photography department, Lebowitz became The Times’ operations manager and photographers’ chief in 2019. She is widely considered to be a talented coach, mentor and editor to photographers. Lebowitz was a crucial force in some of The Times’ most ambitious and collaborative long-term projects including “Snow Fall” and “Deliverance from 27,000 Feet.” She also served as Josh Haner’s editor for his Pulitzer-winning project about Jeff Bauman after the Boston Marathon bombing.

TEAM COBB

This team is named after Jodi Cobb, the only woman ever to hold the coveted title of National Geographic staff field photographer in the magazine’s 130-year history. She has photographed more than 30 stories for National Geographic as a staff photographer and freelancer and has worked in more than sixty-five countries throughout her career. She is one of the most widely published and successful female photographers world-wide. Her book on the hidden life of geishas in Japan was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Cobb received her Master of Arts and Bachelor of Journalism degrees from the University of Missouri.

MPW.76 faculty members for Team Cobb are Sarah Leen and Gabrielle Lurie.

While at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Leen became the first woman to be named the College Photographer of the Year. She went on to contribute sixteen stories — including six cover images — to the National Geographic magazine before becoming a senior editor and, eventually, the magazine’s first female Director of Photography. In 2020, Leen co-founded the Visual Thinking Collective, a community for independent women photo editors, teachers and curators dedicated to visual storytelling. This year, Leen’s book, “Ukraine: A War Crime,” was named the Photography Book of the Year by the Pictures of the Year International competition. She has participated in MPW — as a participant, on crew and as a faculty member — for nearly two decades.

In 2014, Lurie moved to San Francisco to embark on a career as a freelance photojournalist. By 2016, she had joined the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle, where she has since made significant contributions in both still photography and video. Lurie is a two-time Pulitzer Prize Feature Photography finalist for her coverage of a mother’s struggle to save her daughter from drug addiction and her dedication to documenting the fentanyl crisis. Among dozens of other awards, she was named the 78th, 79th and 80th Pictures of the Year International Local Photographer of the Year. Lurie also is an organizer for the Bay Area Women Photograph group and plays a vital role in managing the Chronicle’s internship program.

TEAM EISERT

This team is named after Sanda Eisert, who became the first White House picture editor in 1974. Eisert also worked as an Associated Press Washington Bureau picture editor, served as a picture editor for The Washington Post and was a picture editor for the Louisville Courier-Journal and Times. While at the San Jose Mercury News, she contributed to coverage of the 1989 earthquake that won a Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting. Eisert served as a faculty member with the Missouri Photo Workshop for 18 years, including in 1975, the same year then-President Gerald Ford’s daughter, Susan, attended the workshop.

MPW.76 faculty members for Team Eisert are Kim Chapin and David Barreda.

Chapin is the Executive Director of the Los Angeles Times’ Photography Department. She joined the Los Angeles Times’ in 2023 after serving as the deputy director of the Boston Globe’s photography department since 2005. Chapin was part of the Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings in 2014. Before coming to the Globe, she worked for the Saginaw News in Michigan as a design and photo editor and served as a day and sports photo editor for eight years at New York Newsday. She is also a graduate from the University of Missouri.

Barreda is a senior photo editor at National Geographic and a core team member of Diversify Photo. Since graduating with his graduate degree in journalism from the Missouri School of Journalism, Barreda has been a staff photojournalist at the San Jose Mercury News, the Rocky Mountain News, the Valley News and the Tallahassee Democrat. He also holds a degree in geography and environmental studies. Barreda was born in southern Peru and is now a visual editor, multimedia producer and journalist based in Oakland, Calif. His editing career includes working for Earthjustice, and he is a founding editor at Topic and ChinaFile.

TEAM CLIFF & VI

This team is named after Cliff and Vi Edom, who were a trailblazing photojournalism team responsible for the creation of the Missouri Photo Workshop. Cliff is commonly attributed with inventing the term “photojournalism.” Cliff earned a degree in journalism, then, at the University of Missouri, he organized and headed the first accredited photojournalism department in the nation. Vi was the assistant manager for the Missouri Press Association for more than three decades. The Edoms founded the Missouri Photo Workshop in 1949, the Pictures of the Year contest in 1943 and the national photography honor fraternity Kappa Alpha Mu in 1944.

MPW.76 faculty members for Team Cliff & Vi are Torsten Kjellstrand and Sally Stapleton.

After 25 years of work as a writer, photographer and filmmaker, Kjellstrand, a Swedish native, now works in academia as a Professor of Practice at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. He worked at The Herald in Jasper, Indiana, where he was named Newspaper Photographer of the Year by the Pictures of the Year International competition. In 2003-04, Kjellstrand spent a year as a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University studying links between ethnicity, language, landscape and storytelling. He then worked as a freelance photographer and filmmaker in New York City before coming to Eugene, Ore., in 2013. “Storytelling is dangerous: if you tell the wrong story, you can hurt people, but [storytelling] can also build trust and foster understanding,” Kjellstrand said.

Born in Kennett, Mo., Stapleton’s father was the publisher of the local newspaper, the Daily Dunklin Dem13ocrat. The University of Missouri graduate worked for the Associated Press for more than a decade. From 1991 to 2002, while Stapleton was there, AP Photos received nine Pulitzer Prizes in Photography including two for work covering the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the 1998 United States embassy bombings. Stapleton later worked as the managing editor for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Under her guidance, the Post-Gazette staff won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting for its coverage of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting. She has also served as a juror and nominator in photography competitions including World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year and the Alexia Foundation.

TEAM CHAPNICK

This team is named after Howard Chapnick, who was a photo editor and influential leader with Black Star photo agency. After serving in the United States Air Force during World War II, Chapnick formed a new department responsible for photo essays and books at Black Star while also working to create and maintain a world-wide network of photographers. He bought the founder’s shares of Black Star in 1964 and went on to serve as the agency’s president for more than two decades. Additionally, Chapnick mentored aspiring photographers and taught annual workshops at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. In 1994, he published the book “Truth Needs No Ally: Inside Photojournalism.” Alongside Jim Hughes, Chapnick was a principal founder of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund, which established a grant in his memory after he passed away in 1996.

MPW.76 faculty members for Team Chapnick are MaryAnne Golon and Idris Talib Solomon.

Golon’s decades-long career as a visual editor includes work as the Director of Photography at The Washington Post, Director of Photography at Time Magazine and more than 20 years as a senior photography editor at Time Magazine. She has received individual and team picture-editing awards from the Pictures of the Year International competition as well as the National Press Photographers Association Best of Photojournalism competitions. In 2013, she was named Picture of the Editor of the Year by the IFA Lucie Awards, and Golon was twice selected for American Photo magazine’s list of the 100 most important people in photography. This fall, Golon is one of 10 new faculty members joining the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University to teach classes in visual editing.

Solomon is a commercial and unit photographer based in New York City. He has worked as a creative director in the advertising and marketing industry with clients ranging from Apple and Netflix to The New York Times and National Geographic. In 2020, Solomon created the Black Shutter Podcast, a platform dedicated to celebrating the experiences of Black Photographers. He was a photographer in the tiny Ozark town of Mountain Grove, Mo., during MPW.70. Solomon’s career started in graphic design, art direction and advertising, giving him a perspective on how he approaches photography through the eyes and mind of a designer.

Follow three MPW photographers and the stories of their hometowns as the embark on the Missouri Photo Workshop journey.

Who is ELna Hill, and why is she on my shirt?

MPW Returns to Missouri Bootheel after more than 30 Years, remembers Caruthersville legacy

By Olivia Myska

Elna Hill, a teacher in Caruthersville, Mo., was already an experienced educator in Missouri’s southeastern Bootheel by the time Missouri Photo Workshop photographer Leslie Jacobs photographed her during MPW.39. This year marks the workshop’s return to the Bootheel after more than three decades — and for only the second time ever in MPW history. To celebrate this occasion, workshop leadership knew using a photo from Caruthersville of Hill on the Kennett, Mo., MPW.76 t-shirt and as the field guide cover just made sense.

In reflecting on the photo’s selection, current MPW director Brian Kratzer said Hill was, supposedly, a force to be reckoned with, “commanding the classroom, the crosswalk and the playground. Future teachers looked up to her.”

One Caruthersville educator, Darrell Jones, taught with Hill for his first two years. More than three decades later, Jones’ memories of the monumental woman were still fresh.

“She was the reason I got my reading specialist’s certificate, and the things she taught me during the time we worked together have made me the teacher I am,” Jones said. “I remember once she was telling a class of ours about their behavior and how a paddling that she would administer to them would feel. She told them the first lick would be like thunder, the second would be like lightning, and the third one would be like a tornado and tear everything up. I was in the back of the room, and I had to turn around because I was about to burst out laughing. She was a remarkable person, and I have never, never forgotten her.”

Another aspect of choosing the MPW.76 cover photo came from the image being featured in the workshop’s 75th retrospective exhibit, “Small Towns, Big Stories,” and an earlier exhibit, “Documenting the Black Experience in Small Town Missouri.” Former MPW co-directors David Rees, who is a Missouri School of Journalism professor emeritus, and Jim Curley, who is a former Missouri School of Journalism agricultural journalism professor, were instrumental in setting up these exhibits. They recalled other photos of Hill rising in conversation as they organized which photos best represented the workshop’s history and impact.

Kratzer said the photograph also reminded him of “our MPW faculty teaching — through the workshop — life lessons they've learned during stratospheric careers full of intimate interactions as editors and photographers.”

“I love Hill’s inspiration,” Kratzer said, “and what I see in this photo is what I hope happens to us this week.”

A Snapshot History of the missouri Photo Workshop

By Olivia Maillet

The modern notion of photojournalism coincides with the creation of the Missouri Photo Workshop; this is no accident.

It’s hard to conceptualize that photojournalism as we know it today didn’t exist until the late 1940s. Telling visual stories had long been a part of journalism, but photography was not “in the moment” and did not follow the same ethics photojournalists now learn. Instead, photo editors would write a “shooting script,” and the photographer would stage their pictures.

About a decade before publications began fully utilizing photojournalism, poverty and strife riddled the United States during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. President Franklin D. Roosevelt commissioned the Farm Security Administration (FSA) to hire photographers to document scenes of struggle across the country. Roosevelt hoped these pictures would be the extra push Congress needed to pass New Deal legislation.

Enter Cliff Edom, who worked for newspapers and taught at a school of engraving. Edom and his wife, Vi, moved around Wisconsin and Missouri before settling in Columbia, Mo., in 1943. Edom earned a degree in journalism and was head of the first photojournalism department in the country at the University of Missouri.

In fact, Cliff Edom is often credited with coining the term “photojournalism.”

Edom was intrigued by Roosevelt’s New Deal photographs, not because of their impact on government, but rather for their profound effect to forge connections among Americans through the emotions they elicited. He wanted to know what farm life was like after the New Deal, a fascination that developed into a partnership with the FSA and a rough plan for the first-ever Missouri Photo Workshop.

MPW started in 1949 with the Edoms and a few instructors teaching and traveling with a group of students through small towns in Missouri. Since then, the workshop has manifested itself into a world-renowned training ground for photojournalists at all stages of their careers and draws visual storytellers from around the globe.

About 40 photographers each year are selected to travel to Missouri, shack up in a rural motel, hotel or Airbnb, and become a local for one week in the pursuit of photographing a nuanced perspective — a story of someone or something — of the town.

The variety of experience and backgrounds among photographers bodes for a workshop where participants learn not only from their instructors but also from their peers and their subjects.

“The first photo workshop had a housewife, some people who had served, some people who were daily photographers,” said current MPW director Brian Kratzer Brian Kratzer. “Every year, it seems like there will be someone from the education realm … and for a while, maybe the 60s through the 90s, a lot of daily news photojournalists. … As the industry changes, we see more freelance photojournalists, people who are their own brand.”

Historically, MPW photographers first find then photograph their stories, contrasting completely the visual procedure of images published in news outlets not even a century ago. Even as the world modernizes, MPW continues to carry on Cliff Edom’s vision of photojournalistic excellence and the pursuit of meaningful, empathetic storytelling in small towns across Missouri.

Canon sponsors MPW, loans gear to workshop photographers

By Olivia Myska

For the past three years, the Missouri Photo Workshop has been proud to have Canon as a main sponsor. MPW is renowned for its long history of compelling visual storytelling. By providing workshop photographers with top-of-the-line gear, Canon empowers photojournalists to tell the richest and most technically excellent stories possible.

This partnership not only provides cutting-edge equipment but also reflects Canon’s deep belief in the power of visual storytelling to inform, inspire and connect people across cultures and experiences.

Canon has lent MPW a variety of high-quality equipment for this year’s photographers to help them execute their visions at the highest caliber.

At MPW.76, photographers can expect to have 16 full-frame mirrorless EOS-R cameras — 10 of those being EOS R5 bodies, and the remaining six being EOS R3 bodies — and more than 30 lenses at their disposal. Other pieces of Canon equipment include two EF fitment lenses, six EF-EOS R adapters and a ST-E3-RT Speedlite Transmitter.

Equipment is available to all photographers and can be found at MPW.76 headquarters, located at First Baptist Church Family Life Center.

Key Moments in Kennet History: how time changes land, livelihoods, legacy

By Olivia Maillet

The town of Kennett, positioned in the Bootheel of Missouri, is no stranger to change. What was once a swamp inhabited by the Delaware tribe in the late 16th century is now dry, cultivated and industrialized.

Before the land became known as Kennett in 1851, it was Butler. But, before that, it was Chilletecaux, named after Chief Chilletecaux, the leader of the Delaware tribe. The chief positioned his people at the highest geographical point in the area in order to survive the swampland.

“Before they had drainage here, there were times it was almost inhabitable,” said Tony Byrd, a retired Kennett resident who volunteers at the town’s public library. “Except on the high ground… that area right there behind the [Palace] Theatre.”

In 1862, during the Civil War, Dunklin County, where Kennett is located, seceded from the Union. It became known as the “Independent State of Kennett.” Union troops occupied the area, and raiders ransacked the town. When the ashes of the war cleared, Kennett was next-to-nothing.

During the golden age of American railroading, however, there was a glimmer of hope for Kennett residents in the form of industrialization, specifically by trade timber with neighboring counties.

“It was slow going, but they did manage to get some railroads built, and that changed the whole outlook for the region,” said John C. Fisher, an independent researcher who focuses on southeastern Missouri.

But railroad tracks could get short circuited if swampwater washed over them.

Nowadays, swampland only exists in controlled wildlife areas like the tupelo-cypress bottomland forest in the Ben Cash Memorial Conservation area, located west of Kennett. “Controlled” areas mean the spaces remaining following Missouri’s 1893 1893 to drain certain districts on the St. Francis River.

“They took all of the water to the south and put it in a lake — which is Big Lake — which is south in Arkansas,” Byrd said.

Canals were carved to transport the swamp water. In fact, Cape Girardeau, an hour away from Kennett, has the largest drainage system in the country. Nearly 1,000 miles of canals were built to drain the area of Kennett and its surrounding counties, according to the Kennett Chamber of Commerce.

Kennett became a land of rich soil where farmers profited from soybeans, wheat, corn, rice and cotton. About five years ago, a Delta Peanut LLC plant was constructed. Byrd said it is now Kennett’s biggest industry.

For the past two decades, Kennett has been home to a little over 10,300 residents; this is roughly 10,000 fewer people than Sedalia, Mo., where MPW.75 took place last year. About 75% of the residents are white, 14% are Black and 3% are Hispanic. Just under 18% of Kennett residents have a bachelor's degree or higher, according to Census Reporter, a number that is about three-fifths the rate of the state as a whole.

The story of Kennett up to the present has been one of adversities and triumphs. Kennett’s rich past connects its residents with a tangible nostalgia and feelings of pride for the future. Its land has been burned, drained and plowed yet continues to provide a home for many different groups of people.

And, for one week this September, Kennett will add a new group of residents to its already rich fabric: MPW.76 photographers, faculty and staff. As locals and guests collide, only time will tell what new stories may emerge as part of this Bootheel town’s still-growing legacy.

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