Take a look behind the cameras
By Lindsey Michael Miller

An artistic extension of the University that doesn't get much press-no pun intended-is the Student Publications photography staff. These are the students who take care of all the behind-the-scenes work for the Oracle and the Perihelion. Headed up by photography guru Russ Miller, this motley band of bohemian artistes is all-too-often overlooked (unless they are taking a picture of you directly in your face, which is not often appreciated).

At eleven o'clock on a Friday morning, while most of us are taking advantage of the no-chapel hour by sleeping, one can find them hard at work, frantically searching through their recently developed film for just the right shot for a Perihelion or Oracle layout.

Some of them are just starting out as serious photographers, while others have been pursuing professional photography as a career. Gathered among them is such a wide variety of personalities and majors that only the great love for an overlooked art form could bring them all together.

Russ Miller has been running the photography group for the past year, since he inherited it from Giovanni Billings. As a senior Organizational/Interpersonal Communications (OI Comm) major, he has been "making photographs" (not "taking pictures," the amateur way of referring to the process) for the past two years. "I cannot draw anything more than a stick figure," Miller claimed laughingly, "but I love the arts and love to be able to portray to others the things that I can see in my mind. I love the ability a photographer has to capture an experience. My greatest challenge as one is truly conveying that experience to people who have never known or seen the things I have."

Miller plans to take his art with him into the future. "I like being able to take photos in the missions trips I go on because I can share that experience with people across the world," he said. "I also would like to have a small studio in my house to do some part-time portrait work for friends and family to make a little extra on the side."

Chris Dingess, a senior International Business major, looks at photography as an art form, but the art of photography is not his impetus. "I'm not so much an artist as I am an historian," he said, "because my subject matter [pictures of people in the Oracle and the Perihelion] is historical." He was the Editor-in-Chief of the Perihelion for two years and sees photography, at least for what he has been doing, in more of a task-oriented light than an artistic one. "I love Ansel Adams and landscapes," he said, "but that's just not what I do."

Ann Clas, a freshman Psychology major, has been into photography for the past six years and has been working hard to become more of a professional photographer over the past year. "It's one of my passions," she said, "because there's something about freezing a moment in time and capturing it in a way that allows other people to see it differently that keeps me addicted." She strongly believes that photography is an art form. "Although I take many pictures for the sole purpose of making my memories sharper, the fact that it is an art cannot be denied," she said.

Clas also has done some light modeling work, which is interesting, because the people taking pictures are rarely the ones in them. "I enjoy being in pictures for the fun of it, but I also view [modeling] as being an art," she said. "It takes something special to be photogenic."

Barbara Stosek, a junior Business Management major, is trying professional photography for the first time this year. "I used to take pictures in high school for photo albums and for candid shots, but nothing more than that until now," she said. She has been learning the art since she was five years old because her dad would teach her the different ins and outs of taking pictures. "Because of that influence in my life, I feel like I have developed an eye for [photography]," Stosek said. She also feels like the Student Publications photography staff is a great learning experience, and she wants to keep practicing photography as much as she can.

Eric Stephen Vorm, a junior Psychology major, is a professional photographer who lives off campus with his wife. He takes an interesting view on photography in light of his major: "I believe that I can use photography as a means to cheer people up, almost as a kind of security booster. I like to take beautiful people who often go unnoticed and shoot them for modeling photos. I think it brings something out of them that other people would never see. I can take any face and make it look good."

Vorm grew up in Boston, where art is a large part of the culture. He distinguished between the work of traditional artists and the work of photographers as: "Artists have the ability to recreate a scene; photographers have the ability to capture a scene." His dream job would be to one day go on an African safari to take wildlife pictures for National Geographic. We're rootin' for you, Eric Steven.

There are many more freelance and staff photographers (Aaron Svenby, Joe Kohutek, Michal and James Allen) on campus, but as you can see with these few, they are quite a diverse, yet amazing, group of people who have come together for a common interest and a unified purpose. If you want to see more of their work, just pick up the Oracle or the Perihelion.

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