Gersh Photo Post | Max Gersh | Multimedia Photojournalist

In the last few months, I’ve won multiple awards in news.

It started in December. I entered the National Press Photographers Association’s monthly clip contest. Photographers enter their best work each month and compete against other shooters in the region. In St. Louis, I am in region 7 (R7). That includes all of Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

One of my images happened to beat out every other shooter in the region in December in the general news category.

Soldiers take a nap Friday morning along the side of a stairwell at Lambert International Airport. Thousands of soldiers were at Lambert for the annual exodus home for the holidays from Fort Leonard Wood. © 2008 St. Louis Post-Dispatch

In April, the Missouri Colligiate Media Association (MCMA) banquet was held in St. Louis. This is where awards are presented for college newspapers throughout the state. My last 1.5 years at Webster, I was the photo editor for our student paper, The Journal.

Last year, I won 1st place in sports photo, feature photo and photo illustration. I also took 2nd place in information graphic.

This year, my images won 1st place news photo, 2nd place news photo, honorable mention feature photo and honorable mention sports photo.

1st Place News - A day after a Kirkwood resident gunned down fice city officials, more than 1,000 people gathered Feb. 8, 2008 for a candlelight vigil and prayer service. The hour-long service was held across the street from the Kirkwood City Hall, where Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton shot and killed four City Council members before being gunned down. © 2008 Max Gersh

2nd Place News - Gerald Thornton takes a phone interview outside of the Kirkwood City Hall Feb. 8, 2008. Thornton is the borther of Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton who entered the Kirkwood City Hall armed Feb. 7. "Cookie" Thornton killed two officers and three more city workers before he was killed by police officers. © 2008 Max Gersh

Honorable Mention Feature - Ray Holtmann plows the sidewalk March 4 around the Quad just before Webster University closed for the day. Holtmann has been out plowing since 6 a.m. and is going to keep plowing until he gets called in for the night. He said he would begin plowing again at 6 a.m. the next day and have the sidewalks cleared by 8 a.m. to keep it safe for students. © 2008 Max Gersh

Honorable Mention Sports - Gorlok forward Steve Hrdlicka jumps to block a shot by the Eureka College Red Devils. Webster lead by 20 points at the half and closed out the game be increasing the lead to 30 points. © 2008 Max Gersh

Some of my photo staff also collected multiple awards.

Laila Wessel took 1st place feature photo for a stunning dance image (#11 in her Theater & Dance gallery) and took 2nd place sports for a great basketball image (#25 in her sports gallery).

Phil Crawford, a contributing photographer to the paper, received 3rd place feature photo.

Brent Johnston won 1st place sports photo for a nice moment in a flag football game.

The paper took 1st, 2nd and 3rd place for photo spreads.

Over all, The Journal took home 33 awards, more than any paper in the state. Way to go Journal!

I am awaiting the NPPA R7 results for the month of January. Keep your fingers crossed.

Katie had a portrait assignment for her color photography class. Of course you immediately try to think of interesting people. Maybe they have deep wrinkles. Possibly someone that wears extravagant clothing. Instead, Katie found a biker.

Her model rides a Harley. It was only fitting to shoot it outside a local Harley dealership against their colored fence.

With her trusty AE-1 and a few rolls of Kodak UltraColor, she got to work.

You know me though. I had to shoot too!

Kaite, my girlfriend of nearly two years, is a great photographer. This is nothing terribly new. I have been amazed with her images as a new photographer since the very beginning. She seemed to nail every exposure and have unique compositions. She took this great picture as part of an assignment for her photo 1 class. It was on one of the first rolls of film that ever passed through her camera.

Well, she has impressed me again. I pressured her into taking a photojournalism class. I have always told her that I am happy to help but I will not come up with her ideas, do any of the hands on work, or tell her when the final product is right. That has been my rule since day one.

She was really worried about her photojournalism class. When it came to doing a multimedia project, she was worried that it would be too overwhelming. I reassured her that is was just another way of telling a story.

She found an international culture and faith festival in Illinois. She went with the intent of covering it as a multimedia project.

We both went to the festival. I kept telling her to gather more audio; shoot more pictures. She got really angry with me at points but I wanted her to have more content than she needed. You can always cut but you can’t add what is not there.

After a few hours of working through Premiere Pro, she came out with a nice piece.

So again, I send a kudos to Katie. You made a nice project! I told you that audio isn’t hard!