Applications are open for the 2024 Missouri Photo Workshop for 6 MORE DAYS! (Deadline is June 20th); a workshop that I benefited immensely from when I attended in 2019, and I thought that I would write a bit about it. Here I’m sharing my own application materials (my portfolio, cover letter and letter of recommendation) as a reference and also speak to what you can expect to experience at the workshop.
For context, when I applied for the workshop I was a staff photographer at the Charleston Gazette-Mail, and I wanted to learn some additional skills to help better my coverage of the community that I served. By the time the workshop actually happened I was a few months removed from being laid off at the Gazette Mail and had just moved back to DC to try to revive my freelance career after being away from it for five years. While the workshop’s experiences would have been invaluable no matter what, it gave me exactly what I needed when I was needing it most- a chance to hit a reset and get my head back into photojournalism. The workshop is a crash course in teaching you fundamental aspects of doing the actual work of the job-from coming up with a story and pitching it to editors, to forming a narrative and seeing it through to completion in a timely fashion. On top of that, seeing old friends and making new ones is another important aspect of the workshop. The photojournalism community is a smaller world than you might think, and the people you meet there will probably be people that you know for years to come.
How the workshop actually works is a different town is chosen each year in the state of Missouri for attendees to profile. When I attended there were around 40 photographers there. Whatever number there is this year, you’ll be broken into groups with two professionals that will act as the leaders of your group. The workshop lasts for seven days, and in those seven days you’ll have to find and pitch your own story to photograph-with no more than 400 images (roughly equivalent to 10 rolls of film). To imitate the experience of shooting film, Your file names will show in the metadata so you can’t delete anything you shoot. Each day you’ll drop off your memory cards for them to look through. You’ll receive feedback with each take and by the end of the week narrow down your entire shoot to a tight edit for presentation. Sprinkled throughout this process each night are presentations by team leaders of their own work and words of wisdom from their personal experiences.
The greatest lesson: Trust the process.
It’s such a simple thing to say than it is to do. If the idea of coming up with a story on your own terrifies you, trust me, I get it. I’ve always considered myself a daily shooter, in part because for most of my career I absolutely sucked at coming up with my own stories. And in Boonville on the beginning of that Monday morning, I was in a slow motion panic. I had no idea what I was going to do for a story at all. Like a lot of others at the workshop, it was a random conversation in town that led me to my own story. On Main Street before dawn and passing by a man who looked to be in his 60’s I struck up some small talk with him, asking if there was anything interesting in the town. “That whole part of town was affected pretty bad by the flood in 93” he said, gesturing towards the river. Even though a flood that happened a quarter century ago wasn’t going to be much help to me, I kept going anyway. “You don’t say?” fishing for more info. “Yeah! you might want to talk to Snoddy’s, they got hit real bad but they’re still here.” “Snoddy’s?” making sure I heard him right. “It’s a general store across the bridge.” Looking up Snoddy’s on google maps I started walking. If you want a more detailed version of what happened next, here’s the document narrating my story that I made near the end of the week for the workshop (yes, you’ll be writing as well!) So from just a conversation on the street with a random passerby, I was able to find a story on the first day. However, if you don’t find a story the first day that’s totally okay! Most people fail on their first story pitch-some attendees took three days to find their story. So it’s completely normal to take more than a day.
The process of finding a person, telling their story, getting to know them and them getting to know you, knowing when to move forward and when to pull back. None of those lessons would have been really possible if I had just been handed an assignment. Of course this isn’t knocking other workshops that do so, but MPW taught me more than I ever thought it could. The stories that were made by attendees were awesome, and the best part was at the end of the week the images made during the workshop are printed out and the whole community is invited to see them.
Helpful Tips
If you’re chosen, a block email will be sent to all attendees. Use this to check out the work of others that’ll be at the workshop too. This is also important because you’re in charge of making your own reservations for where you are staying, so this gives you a chance to hit up some people and make a plan about accommodations.
You’ll find out the town you’ll be working in some time before the workshop. Feel free to look up whatever info you can about it, and If the schedules are still similar you’ll arrive to the chosen town on Sunday with your search for a story (and your 400 shutter count) beginning the following day. Get there early and pound some pavement to get your bearings of the place. However, as I mentioned before, finding a story spontaneously is part of the MPW experience. So while it’s totally fine to look up information on the town, leave some room for that experience to manifest as well.
There is always a learning curve between photojournalist & subject. Do your best to convey to your subject what it is you’re doing. For example, with my subject Jim, I asked him to tell me about anything of note regarding Snoddy’s. On the last day of shooting, I asked him if anything was going on in the morning and he said nothing that important-so I went to have breakfast in town and killed some time. By the time I got back to Snoddy’s a car was leaving, and I asked him who that was. He replied that it was an appraiser there to see how much the building could be sold for. To him, that wasn’t worth anything mentioning, but to me, that would have been a great ending to the story. So I could have done a better job of letting Jim know why that would have been important to the story. Make sure whoever you are working with that they know exactly what you’re about and what you’re doing.
I really hope this info has been helpful, and I hope that it will inspire you to apply to the Missouri Photojournalism Workshop! Anyone who’s got questions-feel free to DM me over instagram @chudsonphoto and I’d be happy to answer them.
Craig's Corner 