Words and Light

The past two weeks have been pretty hectic, which is why I haven’t blogged about my Missourian photo shifts and assignments until now.

So here is Week 5, which was Sept. 21-25. Of that week, I worked Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday — but you’ve already seen Friday and Saturday’s material.

The big theme for the other assignments I completed during Week 5? It’s all about the people.

Wendy Savley, an instructor at the Show-Me Gymnastics gym.

On Tuesday, I photographed Wendy Savley at work for VOX’s “On The Job” feature. Savley, who used to be a gymnast, is now an instructor at a local gym, and my assignment was simply to photograph her doing whatever she does at work. So I tried to have fun with it and play with the rear-curtain feature on my strobe, as you can see.

Savley gently reprimands two of her young gymnasts for lying to her about when they could come to practice last week.

Above, you can see another aspect of Savley’s job that I hadn’t considered before. Working with younger children so closely often results in the instructor’s assuming a mentor role.

After I wrapped up at the gym, I met photojournalism student Mallory Benedict for one of the stranger assignments I’ve had to complete.

Mallory Benedict drives to the site of her Aug. 2007 crash. Benedict had been driving home from a friend's house at 4 a.m. when she texted the friend for directions out of the neighborhood. While typing her message, Benedict overcorrected her steering three times, which led to her rolling and totaling her car. Although her airbags did not deploy, Benedict, who had worn her seatbelt, was not injured.

The assignment was to take a portrait of Mallory Benedict, who two years ago had a could-have-been-fatal accident directly caused by her texting while driving. What was so strange about the assignment was that Benedict is a fellow journalism student — and I’d always taught and been taught not to cover colleagues, which Benedict essentially is. But that was the assignment, so I did it.

Benedict and I drove around the outskirts of Columbia for more than half an hour, trying to find the location of her accident. When she concluded that it must have been a particular slope on North Ballenger Lane, we parked the car and I took a few environmental portraits.

One of the environmental portraits I took of Benedict.

Thursday was another day of photographing people on the job.

Because the next two days would be filled with Roots ‘N Blues coverage, my editor asked me to photograph people setting up stages and other equipment in Peace Park. Everyone was chill about letting me follow them around — and then the rain came in, and the pace picked up.

Bob Reeves, co-owner of MSA Productions, works to get electrical equipment under cover from the oncoming rain on Thursday. Reeves and his Columbia-based company, which set up all five stages for the festival this year, began putting all the stages together at 8 a.m. on Thursday.

Afterward, I went to the Stephens College campus, where the cast of “The Laramie Project” were putting on the final dress rehearsal. I was there to cover Kiely Schlesinger, one of the actresses in the ensemble cast.

“The Laramie Project” is a play about the 1998 murder of a gay University of Wyoming student. Rather than having traditional acts, scenes and narrative dialogue, “The Laramie Project” is comprised of interviews conducted by the project directors. Insight by more than 200 people related to the murder case or the town of Laramie is included in the play.

The cast of "The Laramie Project," in the last five minutes of the final dress rehearsal.

A wrap-up of Week 6 is in the works. In the meantime, I’m shooting one last game of high school JV football tonight — before Thursday’s game against Nebraska. So, look forward to more high school football photos!

(And, as always, you can view more photos from each of these assignments.)