Blog | Jakob Berr Photography

Over the last 14 months I’ve been working on my professional project, the capstone of my Master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism. The time has been a rollercoaster of constant ups and downs, successes and backlashes. But it has paid off as I have learned important lessons about photography, multimedia, journalism and about myself. I’m excited to present to you the outcome of all of this: forgiven, but not forgotten. Please visit the project website, and if you feel compelled to voice your thoughts about it, leave your comments in the forum section.

This afternoon, Valeria took me to the place on 512 Mary St. where Deandra Buchanan shot and killed her daughter Angela almost to the day ten years ago. She had a little bouquet of flowers with her that she laid down on the sidewalk where Angela was found. The house where the shooting took place still stands, but has now a wooden exterior rather than a brick one. It doesn’t look like someone’s living there now, and trees and bushes grow all around it. It looks kind of creepy, and I’m wondering if I should go back when it’s dark to work out that aspect. I’m kind of torn apart about it, though, because I’m not sure if it might come across as sensationalistic or editorializing. I’d be glad to hear some other thoughts on this.

Since last Monday, we’ve been in Macon, Mo., for the 62nd annual Missouri Photo Workshop. Calin and I are this year’s co-coordinators, and after we moved in to our headquarters late Saturday night because of yet another wedding that conflicted with our plans, everything is now up and running and we are having a great time with the locals, the workshop photographers who came in from all over the world and the faculty and crew that we are working with.

There’s little time left besides the workshop duties, and most of the participants, crew members and faculty members will probably rack up a total of no more than 20 hours of sleep during the entire week. But being the nerds that we are, we spend even the little spare time we have with our cameras in our hands. And so it doesn’t come as a surprise when you step outside the workshop headquarters to smoke a cigarette and find faculty member Peggy Peattie flat on her back in the grass waiting for the right allignment of clouds, flags and the antler-less elk to immortalize the scene on her memory card. Of course, as a responsible MPW family member, it is a must to make a picture of Peggie making her picture…

Yesterday I went to church with Valeria and her granddaughters. I had joined them before, but didn’t really like the pictures I came back with. With the way the church is set up, it’s hard to get a telling image. A low ceiling, a row of columns along the middle of the room, fluorescent light in the main room and tungsten in the altair room all make photographing in the building a virtual nightmare. This shoot went better than the first one, however, and I guess I’ll just have to come to terms with the fact that this is the most I can get out of this situation.

The congregation is quite small, with maybe 40 to 50 regular attendants.

Valeria makes it a point to highlight sections in her bible that the pastor talks about in his sermons.

Valeria talks to her pastor after service.