Arts & Culture, Events

75 YEARS OF PHOTOS

January 24, 2024

You still have time to see Small Towns, Big Stories, a free exhibit documenting 75 years of the Missouri Photo Workshop, which photographs small Missouri towns annually. Peek into the changes of our landscape and culture as you view 121 images.

Boonville 1953. The archive doesn’t contain the names of these children, nor the reason for their formal dress. But it is clear they are part of a special occasion. Photograph by Bob Trow.

All photos courtesy of Missouri Photo Workshop. A remarkable photo exhibit is closing soon, but you still have time to visit it at the State Historical Society of Missouri in Columbia, through February 10. The free exhibit, Small Towns, Big Stories, documents 75 years of the Missouri Photo Workshop, which sent student photographers to small towns throughout Missouri to photograph and learn from professional photographers. See 121 images taken in 51 towns, which also document the changes in our landscape, culture, and people.

Mexico 1954 According to workshop lore, the photographer returned to tell his faculty that his story had fallen apart because his subject, a factory worker, had lost his job. The faculty informed the photographer that his story was just beginning. They sent him back out to find his subject. Tom Abercrombie returned with a strong storytelling photo and went on to be the first photographer to win both the Newspaper and Magazine Photographer of the Year Awards in the Pictures of the Year Contest. He died in 2006 after a long career as a writer and photographer at National Geographic. Photograph by Tom Abercrombie.

The workshop was started in 1949 by Cliff Edom, a photojournalism educator at the Missouri School of Journalism. He was inspired by documentary photography by the Farm Security Administration during the New Deal, and members of the FSA photo corps worked with Edom to create the week-long workshop for student photographers. Each student must propose and work on one photo story during the week under the guidance of visiting professional photographers and editors.

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Kirksville 1973 A high-stepping mule cleared a fence under the tutelage of Max Harsha, who trained the animals for coon hunters. During a chase, a hunter would dismount and climb over the obstacle as the mule jumped it, then remount and continue the pursuit. (Caption is from the February 1989 National Geographic article about the workshop.) Photograph by John H. Sheally II.

“This is Missouri’s photo album,” says Brian Kratzer, current co-director of the Missouri Photo Workshop and an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism. (Incidentally, Brian took the second cover of the revived Missouri Life back in 1999).

Cassville 1977 Flora Mae Johnson was in her 80s and a recent widow when Phil Schofield made this photograph at MPW.29 in Cassville in 1977. At the time, Johnson was single-handedly maintaining the farm, tending the cow herd and doing all of the chores. “Once in a while you find, or fall into, a subject that just clicks,” Schofield says. “She let me completely inside her life, and she was so beautiful in the way living off the land sculpts you. There were memories of her late husband everywhere; she washed and put out his morning coffee cup every day and had a Sunday suit of his clothes laid out on the bed.” “Flora Mae Johnson had a lasting impact on my career as a photojournalist,” Schofield continues. “Throughout my 35-year career, meaningful photojournalism has above all been about gaining unrestricted access to people’s lives.” Legendary National Geographic photo editor and 24-time MPW faculty member Bob Gilka “took me under his wing after that workshop, and National Geographic kept me busy for the next 25 years.” Photograph by Phil Schofield.

He and former co-directors Jim Curley and David Rees curated the exhibition from a collection of photos numbering in the thousands. Rees is professor emeritus and former chair of the photojournalism faculty at the Missouri School of Journalism. Curley was inducted into the Missouri Photojournalism Hall of Fame and for his work as a photographer and two newspapers and as a freelancer, and he also taught at MU in the agricultural journalism program.

Clinton 1982 A familiar pattern in small towns, diagonally parked cars surrounded the town square in Clinton. (Caption is from the February 1989 National Geographic Magazine article about the workshop.)The town square is not only a center for county government, but it is often the commercial and social gathering hub for the community. For her story on Clinton’s town square, Anna Moore Butzner worked every angle, high and low. Photograph by Anna Moore Butzner.

The Missouri Photo Workshop maintains the world’s longest continuous photographic archive of rural America, according to Brian.

The SHSMO Art Gallery at 605 Elm Street in Columbia is open Tuesdays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4:30 pm, and Saturdays from 10 am to 2 p.m. This exhibit’s last day is February 10. For hundreds more events, visit Missouri Life’s Event Calendar.