RANGEFINDER
Volume 77 - Issue 5
Embedded Files
MPW.77 Documentary
The 77th Missouri Photo Workshop was held in Union, Mo. from Sept. 21-27, 2025. This film takes the viewer through the week-long journey by showcasing the experiences of photographers, faculty and crew members, all threaded through with insight from a local historian about the importance of documentary photography.
A culture shock in Missouri
By Sophie Ayres
Becki Moss | Photo by Yong Li Xuan | MPW.77, Union
Hanna Leka | Photo by Yong Li Xuan | MPW.77, Union
Becki Moss was caught photographing on Tuesday inside a barber shop, sitting and chatting with residents on the waiting bench.
Moss,one of the MPW photographers on Team Chapnick, is from New Zealand, where she works asa freelance photographer. She landed in San Francisco on TK, and spent several days there before relocating to the workshop in Union.
“I still can’t get over the yellow school buses,” Moss said. “I think America is the only place in the world with yellow school buses. Something I described recently to someone about America is like everything feels like full saturation. Like everything’s bigger, everything’s brighter. People are way more friendly and open, but also they’re more likely to yell at each other on the bus.”
Moss said she is hoping she makes it to the end of the week successfully, noting that this is a big step for her, and for many other photographers new to the workshop.
“I think just everything with the lectures and I guess really pushing myself through these critiques and getting past a lot of that anxiety is just like, no, this isn’t an attack on me,” Moss said. “Like these are things that I know that can often feel quite hurtful or quite hard to process in the moment, especially when tired or under stress, but they’re the things I’ll be able to process in the months afterwards and reflect back on.”
Similarly, Hanna Leka, photographer on Team Cobb, said she also isn’t used to midwestern culture. Native to California, she’s now based in D.C and considers herself a “city girl.”
“I feel like I’m deeply acquainted with city life and everything,” Leka said. “Because of that, I feel like this has been such an interesting and relieving getaway in a way. Like when I walk out of the Airbnb that I’m staying at, is like a huge lake and just trees and grass and it’s just green, the skies are blue, the clouds are beautiful.”
Leka said this is the first workshop she’s taken with a strict frame limit.
“I’ve never been put in those limiting circumstances, especially shooting with a digital camera,” Leka said. “But I understand that having that sort of limit really forces you to stop, think, and compose your shots. So I’m excited to see how I change as a photographer because of it.”
The MPW photographers are not only forced out into the community, but forced to slow down. As the list of approved pitches grows, photographers will learn to refine their story summaries and zero in on one central story.
For photographers like Leka and Moss, they will return home at the end of the workshop, but carry their impressions of Union — and their pictures — with them when they go.
Top left, bottom left, and above: Courtesy photos
Wolf captures Church Lady Jean
By Sophie Ayres
Photo by Yong Li Xuan | MPW.77, Union
You can just barely see the wide eyes of Jean Marquart as she peers into the mesh tent on her kitchen table. Moving slightly to the left, moving closer, than pivoting to the right; a photographer leans against the wall. Kayla Wolf is attempting to blend into the background as Marquart gets ready to release her monarch butterflies in the garden.
Marquart makes squealing noises as she shakes the tent, encouraging her butterflies with little mantras.
“Come on, shake those wings,” she said.
It’s an intimate moment, seeing Marquart interact with the butterflies she raised, butWolf said it was not hard to gain access to Marquart’s home.
“She’s quite an open book,” Wolf said. “So actually, access was really easy. More of the struggle has actually been to blend into the surroundings so that she forgets that I’m there.”
Wolf said she does have to remind Marquart not to talk so much when she’s shooting. This is difficult, as the pair gets along fairly well. The subject herself is visually lovely to look at, with her white hair and garden and gentle smile. The butterflies, despite being beautiful animals, are a more difficult subject to capture.
“I think with the butterflies, they’re easy to see outside for sure,” Wolf said. “So even though when we’re sitting in the kitchen and you can see that there’s six butterflies in the tent, when you take a photo, it’s not really obvious because the lighting in there isn’t great either.”
Wolf met Marquart on a blue-sky day, when the clouds were puffy and bright, outside of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. Marquart was talking with two of her friends when Wolf approached them to take photos. By eavesdropping, Wolf found her story.
“I don’t spend a lot of time doing documentary stories these days,” Wolf said. “So it’s nice to have the time to do it, but it’s challenging at the same time. Like okay, she’s going to do the same stuff, what can I do to make a picture that’s different?”
Wolf said she wants to do right by her subject and capture the personality, devotion, and purpose in aging. Wednesday morning, Wolf accompanied Marquart to mass, where Marquart worships every morning. A picture of Jesus with the words “Jesus I trust in you” sits on her lawn.
A budding butterfly, just barely crawling out of its cocoon spurred a shriek out of Marquart. The little butterfly was barely moving inside its mason jar. Again, Marquart whispered her words of encouragement, while Wolf captured the moment, silently against the wall.
Criticism isn't all bad
By Sophie Ayres
One of the most iconic photographers from LIFE Magazine was once a harshly-criticized photographer at the 11th Missouri Photo Workshop. A freshman photographer, Bill Eppridge, stood at the top of a building in Columbia to photograph Broadway from an aerial perspective. Then, his faculty mentors ‘Tore him to shreds.’
“I learned very quickly that that’s not the way you photograph Broadway,” Eppridge said in an archival video that students at this year’s workshop watch on Wednesday. “You don’t get on people’s airwave with an aerial perspective.”
Eppridge said he went home smug and angry, wrapping himself up in his sheets and contemplating why the faculty would criticize his work so much. But he started to think about the faculty and why they expected so much from a rookie. As a photographer, he realized, you have no other choice but to do it right. It’s your purest obligation.
“It put me right where I should’ve been,” Eppridge said. “Criticism ain’t all bad, if you listen.”
The sentiment rubbed off on Dave Marner, an alum of the workshop in 1985, where Eppridge was his faculty. He remembers Eppridge as a humble guy.
“He had a real soft spot for the college kids,” Marner said. “I think just because he knew that we were going to be the next group of people going into the profession.”
Marner, who presently works at The Gasconade County Republican, knew Eppridge as someone who wasn’t afraid to take risks, such as getting in an airplane to take a shot of motorcyclists zooming through the Mojave Desert and following the heroin addicts of “Needle Park.”
“He knew he’d have one shot of it, the start from the air, and he did it,” Marner said, noting that Eppridge took deliberate care with their testimony. “He did his story on the Needle Park people, you know, getting involved and being empathetic toward their issues in life and taking the time to be around them as they were going through their ordeals.”
Marner has a poster of Eppridge’s quote “Criticism ain’t all bad, if you listen” hanging in his work office behind his desk. He keeps it as a reminder.
Why is there math in my photography?
By Sophie Ayres
Photo by Randy Olson
What’s in a swoosh? For Randy Olson, the answer is everything. Olson displayed what he calls “spiral galaxies” on the screen on Wednesday, showing photographers how images like the Mona Lisa, many paintings, and his own great work are framed inside spirals, with leading lines and grids that help segment the image. Using this permutation of static geometry, he said, is the key to a great composition.
“Give every element its own space,” Olson said. “Pay attention to the weights and the placements of all the elements.”
Olson began using this form of composition when he taught a workshop at Stanford. He said he needed to think of an innovative way to help photographers compose their images, no matter where they are.
“Static geometry is what you practice to be able to do geometry in motion,” Olson said. “Where all circles and triangles of human forms are coming at you.”
Olson said it’s easiest to begin with static geometry, and the rules of thirds, artfully placing things together in the frame. Then, you can notice the shapes in everyday life, a point he exemplified by showing a photo of people holding packages on their head, walking down a busy street.
“What they’re carrying are shapes,” Olson said. “The buildings around them are shapes.They’re all coming at you and you’ve got to sort out when these various shapes come through here with these various shapes. That’s more complicated. Or like the mirror picture where everyone’s moving on the street. Guys behind the mirror are moving, I’m moving, and you’ve got to line that all up.”
The photographer’s job, Olson explained, is to direct the viewer to what you want them to see first. You also need to give everything and everyone its own space.
In addition to the content of their photo stories, photographers at MPW have also received plenty of feedback on framing and composition in their individual frames. The 400 frame limit might present a bit of a challenge in terms of nailing the perfect composition, but, Olson insists, composition can make or break the image at hand.
QUIZ: Think you know Union?
By Sophie Ayres
1.What is the estimated average age in Union?
A. 42. B. 43 C. 19 D. 27
2. Which year was the photo on the back of the MPW shirt published?
A. 1999 B. 1956 C. 1975 D. 1972
3. What important figure did all of the title and abstracting in Union?
A. Bob Hansen B. Bob Saget C. Kenneth Robert O'Neil
4. Where can you find a large, original buggy in Union?
A. City Hall B. Courthouse Square C. Super 8 D. Franklin County Historical Society
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