UM Journalism School Hosts Workshop to Inspire Early-Career Photojournalists
By Skylar Rispens, UM News Service
MISSOULA – The Ñý¼§Ö±²¥ School of Journalism aims to inspire and empower the next generation of visual storytellers with its inaugural photojournalism workshop this weekend.
Over four days beginning on Thursday, Aug. 29, the workshop’s first cohort of Ñý¼§Ö±²¥ and budding professionals will document a wide variety of stories around Missoula with guidance and mentorship from instructors with years of experience in the field.
“The main goal, truly, is to help early career photojournalists be inspired, learn from their peers and their mentors and connect with the greater world of photojournalism through the workshop,” said Jeremy Lurgio, a UM photojournalism and multimedia professor who helped organize the workshop. “It’s exciting to build another arm of the School of Journalism, which is this workshop community.”
During the past 15 years, Lurgio said he dreamed of creating a workshop on campus and was inspired by other intensives like the Eddie Adams workshop in New York or Mountain Workshops at Western Kentucky University.
“We thought, why don’t we have one of those here? We’re a well-known journalism school, we’re in a cool location and that kind of is where the idea hatched,” Lurgio said.
Students at the UM workshop will be broken up into small groups led by two professional instructors to document stories across western Montana related to housing challenges, rural life, sports and more, Lurgio said. In addition to field-work, guest instuctors and experts from Canon, a camera manufacturer providing equiptment for the workshop, will also offer lectures for participants.
While some of this year’s participants are current UM journalism Ñý¼§Ö±²¥, several alumni are returning to campus to continue developing their craft, including Ridley Hudson, a staff photographer at the Centralia Chronicle newspaper in southwestern Washington who graduated from UM last year.
“Not only is this an excuse to come back to Montana and UM and see everyone there, I think it’ll be a great networking opportunity,” Hudson said. “It’s really good to keep doing these kinds of things in the field because it’s not just about your work, it’s about who you know as well.”
Originally from Georgia, Hudson has been on the job for about six months now and she can already see how well the UM journalism school has prepared her for an industry that can be tumultuous.
“I don’t have a doubt that I can do any assignment I’m given,” she said. “This is a really cool opportunity that the journalism school is able to do this workshop, especially for the photojournalism kids, because I know it can be daunting in this changing landscape, but I think it’ll be really great to have everyone together. It always reinforces that passion when I see all these photographers together and we’re all loving what we’re doing.”
A handful of participants at this year’s workshop have no direct ties to UM though, including Luke Johnson, who is pursuing a Masters degree at George Washington University in Washington D.C. Johnson previously interned at newspapers in Kansas City and Seattle and attended several other intensive workshops.
“I’ve known of a few really solid and high-quality photojournalists come out of the Ñý¼§Ö±²¥, so I’ve been acutely aware of the photojournalism program there,” said Johnson, who first learned of the workshop through social media. “I thought it would be really cool to be a part of this from the ground floor and learn from talented instructors in a place I really think I’m going to enjoy.”
Some of the instructors include Chris Johns, former editor-in-chief of National Geographic; Stacy Revere, a staff photographer with Getty Images; and Lisa Krantz, the newest addition to the School of Journalism faculty who won a Pulitzer Prize this spring. Several alumni with years of professional experience also are returning to campus as instructors, such as Brontë Wittpenn, a staff photographer, videographer and drone pilot with the San Francisco Chronicle.
Since graduating from UM in 2016, Wittpenn worked as a staff photographer at her hometown newspaper the Billings Gazette and completed internships at the Flint Journal in Michigan and the Tampa Bay Times in Florida before working as a multimedia journalist at the Austin-American Statesman in Texas.
“For me, it was a no-brainer,” Wittpenn said about returning to campus as an instructor for the workshop. “I was just really excited that finally Montana could be on the map in terms of a good, healthy place for Ñý¼§Ö±²¥ to learn outside of the classroom and give people an opportunity to come out and explore themselves as journalists and also learn from the community of Missoula and Montana as a whole.
“I hope to just pay it forward, because I know how difficult it is starting out,” she continued. “I hope that the stories that we present inspire conversation within the community—both its strengths and its challenges.”
The public will be able to view the work produced by Ñý¼§Ö±²¥ from 4 to 6 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 1 at the Montana Media Lab at Don Anderson Hall.
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Contact: Dave Kuntz, UM director of strategic communications, 406-243-5659, dave.kuntz@umontana.edu