RANDALL MARYANNE Favorite f-stop? WONDERFUL - F/64 because the whole world is in focus. OLSON GOLON Advice to photographers? INCREDIBLE Favorite f-stop? - Be in love with photography to the point of abandonment because this career is a AMAZING - f/2.8 because nothing ever bumpy, bouncy, up and down, worthwhile love affair, but you have to be committed. SPECTACULAR happens in good light. If you were a tree, what kind would you be? THE If didn’t work in photography, - Redwood because they’re beautiful and majestic. what would you do instead? - I would be a Blues harmonica Favorite f-stop? player. MAGGIE - f/5.6 because it’s right in the middle. If you were a tree, what kind KATHERINE If didn’t work in photography, what would you do instead? would you be? - I would be a linguistic historian because I think language is the cradle of culture. FACULTY STEBER If you were a tree, what kind would you be? - I would be a monkey puzzle tree because of its cool - Ceiba because it’s a huge tree with a huge trunk. I love them because they’re spirit trees. SCOTT structure. RAYMONE ALAN Favorite f-stop? SINES CRAIG - lowest f-stop If didn’t work in photography, what would you BERNER do instead? Favorite f-stop? - I want to own a small grocery with a great deli and - F-Stop Fitzgerald. that I can deliver. If didn’t work in photography, what would you do instead? Favorite photograph? - I would be teaching philosphy somewhere. - “Your Friend” by Russell Lee Advice for beginning photographers? Advice for beginning photographers? - Work hard. Hard work is actually fun. If it is successful for you it will be your ticket to the world. you’ll end up frustrated. If you were a tree, what kind would you be? If you were a tree what kind would you be? - Dogwood because I love dogs. - A live oak tree in New Orleans on St. Charles Blvd. across from the Audubon park. BRIAN RICHARD WAYNE FRANKLIN KRATZER SHAW Favorite f-stop? Favorite f-stop? - f/8 It comes from the phrase “f/8 and be - f/4.5 it’s both aesthetically pleasing and practically balanced. If didn’t work in photography, what would you do instead? photography. - I would be an international spy because I want to be able to If didn’t work in photography, what would you kill people with my thumbs. do instead? Favorite photograph? - I would be a lawyer gentleman farmer running - “Moonrise over Hernandez” by Ansel Adams Advice for beginning photographers? Advice for beginning photographers? - Undsterstand the difference between knowlege and wisdom. - Slow down and relish your observations. If you were a tree, what kind would you be? - Bristlecone pine because the longevity in MELISSA ERIKA harsh environments. KAY LOIS RAIMONDO AMI FARLOW LARSEN Favorite f-stop? Favorite f-stop? - f/4 because it’s in the middle. - f/8. Favorite f-stop? If you didn’t work in photography, what would you do If didn’t work in photography, what would - f/64 because it’s really beautiful if there is motion. instead? you do instead? If didn’t work in photography, what would you do - I would work with horses or in a Japanese garden. - I would be an anthropologist. instead? Favorite photograph? Advice for beginning photographers? - I would be working in hospice care because it’s a time to - “Church Cleaning Day” by Dorothea Lange - Develop a specialty knowledge besides have really beautiful converations with people Advice for beginning photographers? photography If you were a tree, what kind would you be? - You must believe in yourself and have reason. If you were a tree what kind would you be? - A eucaplyptus tree because it smells good. If you were a tree what kind would you be? - A young supple tree with orchids. - I would be a Japanese Maple. MPW ARCHIVE TEETERING A LIVING, GROWING ENTITY ON THE ABYSS By David Rees, Co-Director

"e roughly 2700 photographers By Duane Dailey, Co-Director Emeritus the MPW66 program book. Also read Geographic photos who have participated in the 66 and words each month with new eyes. years of MPW, in addition to making A!er research on location, walking and talking with How to summarize a wild %ower like ? pictures for their individual stories, potential Platte City story subjects, MPW66 workshoppers Every photographer should have a project, a personal have contributed to the archive of small face their fate. Some feel on the brink of falling into a pit. work, she says. Her 30-year story of her mother was not for town , creating a collective "eir sure-footed faculty guides see the start of an ascent of publication. We will never see all. But, she used personal the Matterhorn. Attitude makes the di#erence. consciousness unique in the world. photos to get published assignments. “A project gives Monday night the faculty eye openers a$rmed "e workshop process – a editors a sense of who you are and how you see.” photo stories are real. Photos have impact, giving us insights combination of providing instruction Maggie’s &nal chapter of her mother’s life was utterly into real lives, real places and real results. Photo reality gives and explaining interpersonal and visual powerful, as she documented a woman shi!ing from prim emotional impact. Mom into Madge, exotic woman. Madge was a woman tools for more e#ective storytelling – "ree faculty shared glimpses of their careers with never known by Maggie. Late-life photos document the has as a byproduct the creation of a set cameras. In summation Brian Kratzer said “If you didn’t change as her mother slipped into years-long dementia of pictures that sometimes show a slice laugh and didn’t cry there’s something wrong with you.” toward the &nal two hours. Emotions shared. of time and at other moments an image In “Re%ections From a Wide Spot in the Road,” Jim Lois Raimondo reminded: Everyone has a mom, will transcend the single moment to Richardson, story teller from Lindsborg, Kans., showed just as every subject you approach has a mom. "ere are depict a universal experience. updated slides known for years at MPW as “Cuba, Kansas.” emotional stories in every topic considered this week. "e images in the early archives are Man who just lost his job, MPW 6, Mexico 1954 Richardson credits seed for this work to MPW. A!er According to lore, a photographer returned to tell his faculty MPW is getting down to the guts of our work. You prints that are mounted on exhibition attending he started on picture stories. have two tools, too o!en unused: Listening and Looking. boards. Sometimes these were created David Rees said Jim’s work is our Doxology at the workshop, with the faculty his subject. Tom Abercrombie returned with this storytelling photo and went on to be "e premier with Jim’s live narration gives fresh "is is not a test. "is is real life, today in Platte City. Use doing the editing and layout. "e digital images of people and places of his home state. new insights to capture stories. Little stories, like those Year Awards in the Pictures of the Year Contest. He died in 2006 after a long career as a daily stories from Kansas, build to something powerful. boards would then be on display in writer and photographer at . "e epic started with work-a-day stories &lling &ve- some public place – a library or bank, day-a-week photo pages at the Topeka Capital Jim says, Yes Cuba, Kansas, is a special place. So is Platte City. Photographers must &nd their own perhaps, before they would be sent camera and we have captured as much and any other materials that relate Journal. Self-assigned stories, much like Platte special places. Grab the potential of here and now. back to Columbia. In later years Cli# of the information about the pictures to the workshop. One access to this City MPW stories, were blocks for building a It’s so blatantly obvious that we know history but Edom would hire an MU student (and as possible. For some years there is material will be through the website bigger project. can’t photograph history. Putting the obvious into give him one box of paper) to print pretty good caption info and we know – where we will have 20-30 pictures Jim said, this is one of four self-assigned words gives a fresh take. Our subjects will show us the whole of the exhibit which was whose pictures are whose. Some years, from the early years, with access to the works from the Great Plains and Scotland. “It’s clues of their history. "at’s our job, to expose layers then returned to the town for display. unfortunately, there is very little or no others made through arrangements at not work when it is life.” from this culture. "e negatives for the workshops information with the photographs. the School of Journalism. "eme of the night was necessity of Jim Curley set a mood for the evening with have always been returned to the We continue to ingest all of the images For the last six years we have personal projects. a recap of work from Bill Eppridge, long-serving photographers. into a database that will enable others published books based on the stories, Randy Olson followed with selects from MPW faculty member. Bill documented many National Geographic, under the to have access to the pictures, too. and have provided a copy of the book his National Geographic stories. Listen close. "e former MU photo teacher can synthesize, powerful stories in a career at LIFE. leadership of Editor Wilbur E. (Bill) Photographers retain rights to their to each MPW photographer and have intellectualize and articulate in brief words like no No words match the photos in his &nal Garrett – (also a long-time MPW images, and archive images are used sold them in the town of the workshop. other photographer. He picked top photos from story of Bobby Kennedy. faculty member) made 4x5 copy negs only for promotion of the workshop Our goals are to continue to do these many longer stories from Africa. He pulled the "is week, you will learn photo story as of all the pictures up to about 1986. and for education and research. publications, though the publication best from story boards, he said. His show provides taught by masters. Grab ahold, avoid the abyss. "ese were used in an article about Our goal is to have a digital archive might become an eBook.. guidance for reading National Geographic stories. Take your skills to new heights. MPW that appeared in 1987 and also that will include the photographs from "e archive e#ort is conducted Randy said he learned from Dennis MPW can change your life when you learn in a book about the workshop – Small the exhibits of MPW, listings of the under the auspices of the Missouri Dimick, an editor at Geographic and frequent to extract the DNA of photos and words the Town America – published in 1988. photographers and the faculty who School of Journalism. It is supported by workshopper. building blocks. You will top your teachers. Our "ese photographs have all (almost) participated, the Range&nders (yes, distribution funds from the Missouri Homework assignments: Read Dimick’s text in world needs your insights, let them %ourish. been photographed with a digital there has always been a Range&nder) Photo Workshop Endowment. the quirky oddities of rural towns. di$cult to look for are the things you don’t know. CHATTING WITH I was going to do a book on rural Kansas and "en how do you !nd the things you don’t know at the same time I wanted to include a section on about? small town high school life, and that turned into a "at’s the hard part. How do you get from not project of its own. I spent four years photographing knowing to knowing? For instance people think high school life and that became “High School: that in small towns, the pace of life is slower. It’s not. U.S.A.” in 1979. When I did that book I really saw Usually what happens is they move from a city into a the power of the personal stories that developed small town. Within six months they have been tapped out of photography. for six di#erent organizations and a year later they I settled down photographically in Cuba to are drowning; they can’t keep up. When they want to see if the stories would develop, and they did. slow down they move to a suburb, they move to a city JIMSpecial guest Jim Richardson who graced It was a rich place. I did not know exactly what and they just get a job. Life in a small town is more us all last night with the debut with an I was a!er, but they schooled me on what was complex. updated version of his show, “Re!ections important there. A!er awhile I sort of gave up Cities tend to be organized economically. Small from a Wide Spot in the Road.” Today he sat the idea that I was doing something journalistic towns tend to be organized socially. In a small town, down wih Range"nder Editor Sarah Bell and or documentary in the classic sense of the word. provided insights into his process for us. It’s It became something else. "is never &t any been edited for brevity. de&nition niche. You couldn’t say this was the smallest town or the poorest people or any kind of How did you get into photography? journalistic cubby whole for it to go in the news. So “I was an amatuer photographer as I kinda had to give up the idea that there will ever a kid on the farm and my father was an be true news here and embrace the longitudinal amateur photographer. He bought cameras study, as psychologists would call it, of looking at at pawnshops on his route to . I started it over time and simply making it about: everyday printing pictures in the kitchen at night life, what people &nd valuable, how they create because that was the only place I could make meaning, the value of community, and what it is work as a darkroom out in the country. that people do to create community. And that was I went to Kansas State University and the great lesson to me. was majoring in psychology and got to be a We have this idea that town and community are senior and I decided I didn’t want to do what interchangeable words, but they’re not. "is became a psychologist would do everyday. So second the focus of the story. As journalists we look for semester, I went and got a job at the student unique. I didn’t want unique, I wanted everyday. newspaper and that really stuck. I worked for student publications for a year then I What is your favorite color? got several internships at the Topeka Capital Well, I don’t know. When I was a kid it was Journal. I had no idea what I was wondering always red. I always tell photographers, “For God into. I was blindly lucky. I stayed on there for sakes, get a red picture or two in your story.” I guess ten years.” that re%ects intensity.

Where did the inspiration for “A Wide Spot What was your !rst camera? in the Road”? First camera was an Agfa folding camera. I Relatively early on in the newspaper could do lightning pictures with it. I did pictures At left, Jim’s photo of Mrs. Krasny comes from his Kansas show. He describes it as his favorite. Above, Jim prefaces career, we were all under the in%uence of through binoculars and telescopes. his show before he performed it live on Monday night. the social documentarians like W. Eugene (Photo by Loren Elliott) Smith, David Douglas Duncan, and Cartier- What tips do you have for photographing a small Bresson, and I wanted to do something like town? any newcomers, you would rather have somebody that. But closer to home. Something that I think that the essential thing is don’t evaluate who could do a little plumbing or sheetrock than was available to me and coming from rural the town on your existing structure of meaning. By a poet. Poets and photographers are pretty damn Kansas. I wanted pictures that had more that I mean, people from urban areas tend to come worthless. Someone who can &x your bathroom is staying power or about subjects that were into small towns and they look around for the golden. If you could start to evaluate life and human more universally important than the daily things they know. And when they don’t &nd them needs on those grounds, you take a lot of the obscure news. So that led me &rst into photographing they assume nothing is happening. What’s very profundity out of a whole lot of stu#.