CJ Day
As the saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words”, and maybe a fellowship is too.
The recipients of this year’s Larsh Bristol Photojournalism Fellowship will showcase their work in a reception today. This is the eleventh year the fellowship has been awarded, and both projects focus on Wyoming’s natural environment.
“We want to show people that photography isn’t just for pretty pictures,” said Cindy Price-Schultz, head of UW’s Communication and Journalism department. “Photography can tell a story even better than words can.”
The fellowship is administered by the Communication and Journalism department, and they tend to focus on selecting students who can both produce a project that highlights the strengths of photojournalism, and will benefit from the added resources of the fellowship. Many alumni of the fellowship have gone on to become professional photographers or journalists. This is by design, said Price-Schultz.
“We like to see our students as seeds, seeing who can be nurtured and grown into talented photojournalists,” she said. “Whenever one of our students go on to work in the industry, that’s a win for us.”
This year’s recipients, both of whom are UW students, are Christina DeLong and Michael Gjellum. DeLong, whose project is called ‘Pollinators: A Hidden World Of Diversity’, chose to focus her project around documenting the varied insect life of Wyoming due to recent news that climate change will lead to massive bug die-offs.
She said she wanted to bring awareness to the pollinators of Wyoming, as the rest of the ecosystem relies on them, and any disruption in their numbers could lead to ecological collapse.
“When people around here think of bugs, they think of nasty and annoying ones, like mosquitoes,” said Price-Schultz about DeLong’s work. “A lot of people don’t think about how important these insects really are.”
To photograph such a small subject, DeLong had to purchase special lenses, so that even the smallest details of the insects would be recorded. To help with purchases, the fellowship comes with a stipend, to allow students to get resources they otherwise would not have. While some projects throughout the years have been expensive, some are less cost-intensive.
Gjellum’s project, ‘Phoenix Rising From The Ashes: A Story of Forest Renewal’, for example, was less expensive in terms of equipment, but had more traveling as it focused on documenting wildfire recovery. He traveled around the Mountain West to capture how different ecosystems recover after forest fires. The project hits close to home for him, as his family nearly lost their house to a wildfire in Colorado.
“It’s really interesting how he manages to portray the beauty of the aftermath of these fires, especially because he’s personally seen the negative side.” said Price-Schultz.
For those interested, the reception will be held at 5:30 p.m. in Ross Hall Room 442. After the reception, where both students will give a personal account of their projects, their photographs will hang in Ross Hall for the near future.
