34th annual Mountain Workshops
In 1976, Two Western Kentucky University faculty members took a dozen photojournalism students into eastern Kentucky and Tennessee in 1976 to document the 11 remaining one-room schools there.
The teachers didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the beginning of an annual trek designed to sharpen students’ skills while documenting small towns in Kentucky. Over time the effort morphed into the Mountain Workshops — three concurrent workshops that fine-tune photography, picture-editing and multimedia skills of college students and mid-career professionals in an intensive weeklong effort that documents a town and its surrounding countryside.
WKU faculty members are joined by volunteer shooting, editing and writing coaches to guide trainees and produce content for a photo exhibit, several multimedia productions, an extended documentary DVD and a 116-page book. This year’s coaches include: Rick Loomis, Scott McKiernan, Preston Gannaway, Chad Stevens, Bob Sacha, Joe Weiss, Ken Harper and Mich Cochran.
The 34th annual Mountain Workshops will be held in Murray, Kentucky October 27 – 31. Applications will be accepted until the workshops are full.