Mountain Workshops 2014

Telling the stories of Kentucky

Photo by Adam Wolffbrandt

Owensboro
Rich in life and legend

Maybe it’s in the blood, passed down from the hearty souls who settled here two centuries ago. Or maybe it comes from the restless flow of The Mighty Ohio, which infects everyone in this town and always has. It’s a lively spirit: Work to live, live to laugh, and lend a hand when needed. Folks here have a real sense of belonging.

A Mountain Workshops documentary project, Oct. 15-19, 2013

The faces and places of Daviess County

Stories of Community

Community is a microcosm of the world, the place where we learn to be a part of something. Where we work and play and go to school – the place we call home. Without its people, a community is nothing but a place. Owensboro, Kentucky is home to some mighty interesting people. It is more than just a dot on the map. The compelling character of Owensboro coupled with its compelling characters makes it a community in the truest sense.

Struggles

Often the daily irritations we call struggles are not struggles at all. We complain about struggling through rush-hour traffic, taking a test or just getting through the checkout line at the supermarket. Real struggles hurt. Just as the coal mines of Kentucky are a testament to hard work and endurance, so are individual struggles a testament to a person's strength of spirit. When we find ourselves struggling – really struggling, we dig a little deeper. When we encounter others who are struggling we try as best we can to lighten their load.

Healing

"Although the world is full of suffering," Helen Keller said, "It is also full of the overcoming of it." Failing health, physical challenges, loss and emotional traumas are some of the obstacles that can make living hard. Healing depends on a person's desire to see a problem and try to find a way to fix it, and that requires a different kind of sight. Or as Helen Keller also said, "The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision."

Hopes and Dreams

Hopes and dreams energize and cleanse the soul. Like the waters that follow the path of the winding Ohio River, hopes and dreams flow continually through our lives giving us purpose. Where would we be without hopes and dreams? In a very lonely place. But when we grab on and go with them we might find that our hopes and dreams become realities.

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Questions?

Jim Bye | Coordinator
The Mountain Workshops
Western Kentucky University
jim.bye[at]wku.edu
270-745-8927

About

The Mountain Workshops are five concurrent programs, the Photojournalism Workshop, Video Storytelling Workshop, Picture Editing Workshop, Time-Lapse Photography Workshop and the Data Visualization Workshop. The workshops offers a hands-on learning experience in documentary-style visual journalism.