February 2009: Heart of Kentucky Photojournalism Exhibit of Danville/Boyle County, Kentucky by Mountain Workshops.

 

Where the Wild Things Are -- Chris Floyd, 2007.

 Rewind back to the Autumn of 2007 in Danville, Kentucky.  The small Kentucky town was absolutely inundated with photojournalists following residents, tracking stories, taking photographs – but perhaps most of all, searching for the “moment.” The moment where the elements of a successful photograph align – subject, story, composition, lighting, and emotional impact all work together to present a remarkable document of a person, time, or place.The participants of the project – 48 photojournalists, 12 multimedia journalists, five designer/editors, one multimedia specialist, and 62 faculty and staff loaded into town, taking part in a project that was started at Western Kentucky University in 1976 as a part of their School of Journalism and Broadcasting. The concept is simple enough: travel with a group of students, staff, and professionals to document Kentucky communities through still photography, video, and interviews. Of course, this simple idea gets quite complicated in its execution – requiring what seems to be the about the same amount of crew, equipment setup and technology as your average rock and roll stadium tour. Having done this since 1976, the Mountain Workshops crew has it down to a science. With assistance from the Danville/Boyle County Convention and Business Bureau, the group was able to find a suitable home for their base of operations at the Convention Center where they could spread their roots, using 91 Macintosh computers and over a half-mile of ethernet cable. According to James Kenney of Mountain Workshops, this location provided the most accommodating setup that the group has been able to work within. Photographers would shoot the images mostly during the day, usually under natural lighting conditions and then trek back to the Convention Center to upload their work. Mountain Workshops has managed to evolve alongside photo technology, now working in digital media, rather than the 35mm film that their predecessors started with years ago. I can’t imagine what an undertaking a project of this scope would have been without the convenience and accessibility of digital photography.

The stories that the group captured during their brief residence in Danville include:

“Man About Town,” a bio on Hal Campbell, a legally blind world-traveling pianist in his seventies whose memory alone can serve as a living history of the region.

“Unbreakable Spirit,” the story of Daniel McCarty, a preschooler with severe brittle-bone disease, whose spirit and determination are an inspiration to the community.

“Big Man on Campus,” a photo-essay about John Roush, president of Centre College.

“Where the Wild Things Are,” the story of the Wood family, whose home is a bustling center of activity with two parents and eleven children.

There were originally 72 story concepts on the table at the outset of the project, with 60 of those stories reaching completion. The delegation of the stories among the workshop participants is handled by the time-tested tradition of pulling slips of paper out of a hat. This creates a challenging environment for the students at work as they may or may not have their favorite subject to cover. In my opinion, that element of selected randomness is one of the components that makes this workshop so strong. In the real world of photojournalism, the photographer may not get to hand select his or her story. The creativity of the photographers and journalists is allowed to shine in how they produce their story, what angles they focus on, and how they present the ideas and concept behind the subject.

The exhibit at the Community Arts Center in Danville is presented in three parts – the gallery exhibit of the color photographs captured during the workshop, a multimedia presentation featuring audio and video interviews of the subjects and a 115 page paperback book available at a suggested donation of $20.

The most intriguing aspect of the exhibit and of the project as a whole is the way that the community that I am so familiar with can be so accurately captured by outsiders. Even though story ideas are generated by community members prior to the workshop – it is still amazing how the scope of this project includes all angles of our diverse society. The same amount of coverage is given to a college president, a small business owner, farmers, athletes, rich, and poor. I am also intrigued how the photos that were captured by these photographers during their brief visit represent an iconic image of each of the subjects covered. If I, or any other amateur photographer were covering the same stories, I am certain that we would spend most of our time waiting for something to happen and miss all of the real photographic opportunities in between. According to the companion book to the exhibit, more than 40,000 images were shot during the week of the Mountain Workshops project in Danville. I am convinced that it takes at least that many pictures (maybe more) to accurately depict a community and to show the many facets of its citizens. As with all photojournalism and documentary photography, the greatest message is perhaps the simplest, from both the photographer and the subject, “We existed. We were here.”

 

 

 

Brothers in Arms – Ronald Erdrich –2007

 To see the multimedia slideshow from the exhibit, click the link below.

http://danville.mountainworkshops.org/

Thanks,

Brandon Long