Life. That’s the first thing Vanta Coda III thinks of when he hears the word photojournalism.
“We really take for granted different places of the world and things we don’t understand, but in photojournalism, we can try to relay that to a story,” said Coda. “We can tell a story where we can honor a place or a people in the best way we can in our own style.”
Coda did not expect to become a photojournalist when he began college here at the University of Wyoming. The Duluth, Minnesota resident originally joined UW in its geology and geoscience programs but quickly realized that those subjects were not for him.
“My advisor mentioned a pairing of communications and environmental and natural resources, and it turned out to be a good fit,” said Coda III. “At that point, photography really wasn’t on my mind until I was sent home for COVID.”
During the summer of 2020, Coda was just like every other college student trying to pass the time as educational institutions and the rest of the world tried to navigate the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“I started to try to pick up the banjo and also started some light photography,” said Coda. “Well, I ended up breaking the banjo, so I focused more on the camera with macro photography, capturing insects before I moved on to landscape and street photography.”
Coda then went on to take photography classes at UW, participate in non-profit work in Peru with photojournalism opportunities, and receive the Larsh Bristol 2022 photojournalism fellowship.
“We are here to honor Larsh and to keep his fire alive,” said Shane Epping, recipient of the Bobby Model professorship and professor at UW, while speaking about Coda at the fellowship presentation on October 21, 2022. “The baton was passed to Coda earlier this year, and as expected, he excelled.”
“I didn’t know Larsh, but I know enough about photojournalism and Vanta, to tell you that Larsh would be proud of him.”
The fellowship, named after a UW journalism alumnus who passed in 2006, is awarded once a year to support a UW photojournalism student on a visual project.
Codas’ fellowship project would focus on the legacy of the Union Pacific railway, which was inspired by the works of James L. Ernenberg and Coda’s own childhood memories of the rails.
Coda would go to shoot the fellowship in black in white on his Fuji Film XT 3 camera.
“I shoot in black and white because that’s the only thing I really see, and color is such a distraction to me personally,” said Coda. “I also shoot film because I find more enjoyment out of it because you don’t know what you’re gonna get.”
Peru is not the only location where photojournalism has taken Coda to, as photography as a form of storytelling has taken him all across Italy and reinforced his love for photography and storytelling.
When it comes to post-college and future career goals, Coda’s interest lies in the service of the public sector.
“I think my dream is to do environmental journalism for environmental catastrophes and climate change,” said Coda. “To go into these places to show that, at this point in history, we are not only fighting ourselves but fighting to maintain order in our climate and capturing that raw emotion.”
