Missouri Photo Workshop – Marta Iwanek (part 1)

Finding the Story

The Missouri Photo Workshop was an incredibly intense, emotional experience that showed me so many lessons in storytelling that I’m excited to keep pushing towards.

Each year, about 40 photographers are accepted and arrive in a small town in Missouri, US. This year’s town was Trenton, population about 6,000.

On our first day, we were all sent with a maximum of 40-50 frames to explore the town, find a few ideas and pitch them the next day.

As I was wandering, I found a football game and noticed there was one girl on the team. After the game, I talked to the family and found out JilliAnn had joined the team because her stepbrother Luca, who was the same age but smaller, asked her to join to protect him. It started off as a story exploring the dynamics of their relationship as step-siblings.

Eleven-year-old stepsiblings Luca Nichols (L) and JilliAnn Mathews wait for their mom to start the play as they practice tackling in their front yard on Tuesday, September 24, 2013, in Trenton, Missouri. Luca asked JilliAnn to join the all-male 5th-grade Trenton Little League Football Team with him to protect him. “If it’s a big kid coming at me, it’s usually her or Jake hitting him,” he says. JilliAnn disagrees. “Sometimes,” she says. (Photo – Marta Iwanek)

There were many other stories I also pitched but this one seemed like the right fit. It’s definitely a difficult task to find someone you’ve only just met who is willing to give you full access to their lives for a week and then, at the end of the workshop, have their life on display for the town to see. But I had connected with the family and things just clicked.

After I pitched the story, my coaches, MaryAnne Golon and Craig Walker, wanted me to do some more research and come back to them. So I went to football practice that day, talked to mother Margo and watched the kids, Luca and JilliAnn, as they played football. Because the story wasn’t approved yet, I couldn’t take any photos.

At first, it felt like a straitjacket had been put on me. I was seeing so many beautiful moments unfold and couldn’t capture them. But it was the best thing that could have happened because it made me slow down and really think about what I would be photographing. It made me appreciate what was happening in front of me, take note of what to anticipate and also listen to the people I would be photographing so I could really understand their story.

As I got to know the family, I learned that the game meant a lot more to the family and to Luca, whose older brother Codi died recently and was a long-time football player. He initially joined to honour Codi’s memory.

Luca Nichols, 11, plays with his football in the front yard of his house on Tuesday September 24, 2013, in Trenton, Missouri. (Photo – Marta Iwanek)

It became a story about how a newly integrated family was coming together to deal with the sudden loss of son, stepson, brother and stepbrother Codi, and how they were coming together to help Luca, who was taking the loss particularly hard. It was a story about loss and recovery that everyone could relate to in their own way.

Another crucial element for all our stories succeeding was the city of Trenton being on board with the workshop. On our first day, we had a reception where we each introduced ourselves to various townspeople who ended up being very generous with their time in helping us get access to our stories.

For my story, I was able to get access to the middle school where JilliAnn and Luca went to class, access to the school bus they rode each day and to the football practice they went to every night.

Some key lessons I learned from looking for stories:

1. People will always surprise you. There are many times when I get a little nervous approaching people. But each time, I am always surprised at how open they are to sharing their stories. And many times, these are stories I never would have known about if I didn’t come up to them and say “Hi.”

2. Be honest and clear about what you are hoping to do. Make sure everyone involved is ok with the story being done.

3. Knock on doors. During one of the nightly lectures by the faculty, it was said that the people outside idling are usually there because they have the free time to do it. The real stories are behind the closed doors where people’s lives are happening and they’re too busy to go outside and idle. Those are the stories of a town. Go knock on doors, introduce yourself and get to know the town.

 

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Toronto-based photographer Marta Iwanek is a recent graduate of the Loyalist College photojournalism program. In her final year at Loyalist, Marta was awarded the Shaun Best Memorial Scholarship for outstanding potential and promise. Before taking the time to pursue visual storytelling, she graduated from Ryerson University with a Bachelor of Journalism.

Marta has interned at the Waterloo Region Record in Waterloo, Ontario, and at Metroland Media in the Toronto area. She has been a freelance photo editor for Getty Images in Toronto, a multimedia editor and writer for Ryerson Review of Journalism, and she was a reporter, videographer and editor at OMNI-TV in Toronto.

“I am interested in exploring subjects that deal with community and commitment – what we gain from it and what happens when it is lost.” Marta says. She is currently working on a story about home care for the elderly.

www.martaiwanek.com

 

Marta’s blog post is continued in Part 2.