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PrintCOLUMBIA — Cliff Edom had a simple way of describing the men and women who snap definitive images.
"Photographers are reporters with their brains knocked out," said Edom, a revolutionary figure in the photography field and the man who established the photojournalism sequence at Missouri.
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Over 70 MU students and alumni attended the Missouri Photo Workshop's Influence on Visual Storytelling on Thursday as part of the MU School of Journalism's centennial celebration.
After a light and humorous introduction from photojournalism Chair David Rees, Bill Kuykendall, a former MU professor who now works at the University of Maine, detailed the history of Cliff Edom and the Missouri Photo Workshop.
Edom coined the word "photojournalism" and founded the Pictures of the Year contest as well as Kappa Alpha Mu fraternity, a photojournalism society.
The genesis of the highly-revered Missouri Photo Workshop originally started with a simple mission: To teach new camera use.
Now, the program has grown into an exhausting week where photographers flock to a randomly chosen small town in Missouri to capture life and the tales that make it up. They must first find a story and, after approval from faculty, create a picture story. In the days of film, photographers were limited to ten rolls per project. With the advent of digital technology, photographers are allowed only 400 frames to produce a story.
The mood in the room was casual and comedic as speakers and attendees reminisced and shared workshop memories. Kim Komenich, who graduated from MU with a master's degree in 2007 and who is currently a photographer with the San Francisco Chronicle, has been on the faculty of the Missouri Photo Workshop 12 times.
He said Missouri is the ideal place for the workshop because it allows photographers to spend quality time in a town. They can return to a story every day for a week to get a desired photograph.
"There's no posing, no flash, it's letting pictures happen the way they happen," Komenich said.
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