Congratulations to the three finalists who ranked highest in our WKU NPPA Greek Week Shootout!  The winners were chosen by a majority-rule ballot vote by those in attendance at this week’s Through Our Eyes meeting and were awarded signed prints from members of our own faculty!

1rst.  IAN MAULE

Louisville senior Abigail O’Bryan sings “You’re the One That I Want,” from the movie Grease with fellow members of Alpha Gamma Delta while waiting to perform their routine at Spring Sing at Diddle Arena on Sunday, April 6, 2014

2nd.  JABIN BOTSFORD

Members of Kappa Delta-Delta Gamma, “The Green Army,” pull for their 10th consecutive win of Tug on Friday, April 11, 2014, at L.D. Brown Ag. Expo. Center.  Tug is an annual tug-of-war competition for Greek Week, pitting organizations against each other for the championship title.

3rd.  BRITTANY GREESON

Nashville sophomore Jazmyn Bethel weeps as she waits for her sorority, Sigma Kappa, to compete in the semi-finals of the annual Greek Week tug competition. “We worked all semester.” said Bethel. “It’s different from Spring Sing. I put my whole heart in and you want it so bad, yet you have three minutes to prove yourself.”

Get ready because NPPA is announcing a whole bunch of events!

If you don’t have Facebook or we sadly aren’t friends yet, pay attention because this email contains a ton of important information! If you don’t take a few minutes to read, you’ll only be cheating yourself out of awesome opportunities!

Firstly, do not forget to submit your picture for the Print Trade which is taking place next Tuesday, February 12th at our secretary, Alix Mattingly’s, house. It starts at 8pm and is located at 1326 Park St., Apt. D.
All submissions are due by 11:59 on Sunday the 10th. Make sure you have paid your $10 annual dues OR submitted your National number to wkunppa@gmail.com BEFORE the print trade. Otherwise, we sadly cannot print your wonderful photo. If you want to remind yourself, join our event here.

Secondly, Career Day and Career Night. Every year we have Career Day where you can have your portfolio reviewed by actual professionals in the industry who just so happen to be in hiring positions (hint, hint, think summer internships and future jobs). This is definitely a dress-to-impress day; take it as seriously as an interview. For complete information, please refer to the email our Director, Mr. Kenney, sent out and our Facebook event located here.
In preparation for Career Day, we are having Career Night in 127 on February 13th starting at 8pm. This is going to be an information, case-by-case question/answer, critique, review, you name it session. Need help with your portfolio? Need help with your resume? Don’t even know what a cover letter is? Don’t worry. Just come with your questions in tow and someone will be able to help you out. You can also look at our Facebook page and join so you don’t forget about it. The link is here.

Thirdly, we are having the second clip contest! Basically, this is a WKU-only contest, much like KNPA, CPOY or POY. You can submit up to 5 entries in each category of Sports Action, Sports Feature, News, Portrait and Story. This means you can enter up to 25 separate times. Think of the possibilities! All photos must have been taken between October 28th and the deadline, which is Tuesday, February 19th. For full rules and guidelines, please refer to our Facebook event page, here. At the end of the year, the person with the most points will win some PJ swag. Currently, Adam Wolffbrandt is in the lead with 5 points, closely followed by Austin Anthony with 4. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of time to claim the prize for yourself!

Finally! Don’t forget that EVERY Tuesday is a Through Our Eyes deadline. You can submit up to 5 images or videos, if that’s your style, to wkunppa@gmail.com by 6:30pm every single Tuesday. Everything you submit must have been taken in that one week period, however. If you’re submitting video, it has to have been finished within the Tuesday-to-Tuesday time period. At the end of the year, NPPA will be producing a book of all the images picked for Through Our Eyes. How cool!? Check out the blog, here.

Thanks to every single one of you who take part in NPPA events!
Brittany, Danny, Adam and Alix

Keep track of what our students (and plenty others from OU, UNC and more) are up to at The Mountain Workshops in Henderson, Ky. Today is the first day so look for features soon! At the end of the week, all still and multimedia stories will be served up for your viewing pleasure! For more up to the minute posts check our Facebook page and don’t forget to look on Instagram under the hashtag #mws12 as well!

In honor of our cooperative efforts at Mountain, the third week of Through Our Eyes will be judged on our big screen tomorrow at 1pm! A fresh set of excited eyes cannot wait to see what you all have submitted!

WKUPJs had exciting summers. We were scattered everywhere making great photos. Check out some of our favorites!

Chania Williams, 17, of Flint and Jariah Womack, 11, of Flint, the queen and princess of the Flint United Methodist Church, ride in the Juneteenth parade on Thursday, June 19, 2014 in Flint. KATIE MCLEAN

Ali Ahmed from Dumfries, Va. is a Army Cadet at Virginia Tech training to become a second lieutenant holding his M-16 as he takes a rest at LDAC (Leadership Development Coarse Assessment) in Fort Knox this summer.  Cadets push themselves working on four hours of sleep training in the field to become future leaders in the US Army. DREW BLY

Jure Idzig does a flip off of the highdive at the Schloss Heroldeck dock in Milstatt am See, Austria.  Idzig was one of sixty students to attend the 2014 Ljubljana English Camp run by Josiah Venture in Slovenia. ALYSE YOUNG

Lauren Emineth, from Dallas, TX, draws her self-portrait while participating in an art workshop at Interlochen Center for the Arts, a prestigious arts and music academy located in Interlochen, MI, on June 18, 2014. Classes are held year-round and are taught by leading professionals in the fields of visual arts, music, theatre, and more. LAUREN NOLAN

A ROTC cadet brushes his teeth before morning formation at Fort Knox, Kentuck during Army ROTC Cadet Summer Training. JOSH NEWELLStudents in the Junior Environment Exploration class use nets to fish in Duck Lake at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Michigan on June 25, 2014. BRANDON CARTER

Aman Sekhon, 20, envelopes her candle’s flame. Sikh – Members of the Oak Creek and Sihk community gather in the parking lot of the Wisconsin Sihk temple to remember the six individuals that were gunned down two years ago, August 5, 2014. ALYSSA POINTER

A man stands in the back of his truck at the Grand Forks County Fair in North Dakota on June 28, 2014. LUKE FRANKE

Interlochen Center for the Arts ballet students stretch and prepare for class on June 24, 2014. JUSTIN GILLILAND

Cowboys prepare to ride in the Lone Star Rodeo in Elizabethtown, Ky. The Lone Star Rodeo travels in thirteen different states a year, hosting numerous events. TANNER COLE

Lisa Worley shows her son Jackson Worley, 1, spinning tricks while her daughter Magnolia Worley, 4, hula hoops at Yellow Creek Park during the 11th annual River of Music Party on June 25, 2014. Worley said they traveled about six hours from Bristol, Tenn. to attend ROMP for the first time. TYLER ESSARYLTC 1st Regiment cadets practice formations at the beginning of their time during Cadet Summer Training at Fort Knox, Ky. ERICA LASFERAshton Young, 22, is prayed over by her mother (far left) and bridesmaids in the moments prior to her wedding ceremony at the Bridge Building in downtown Nashville on July 12, 2014. SHELLEY OWENSMarcus M., has spent periods of his life facing a battle with alcoholism, drug use, and a tense relationship with the judicial system. He is one of many ex-offenders benefiting from the Virginia Care’s program, a state wide re-entry program that offers ex-offenders transitional assistance, financial aid, and employment resources. With the support of his only remaining family, his brother, Marcus dreams of finding employment and eventually having his own home. “The things I’ve done throughout my life are not all good, but no one is all good. I’ve been sober and clean now for 18 months and I know I can continue, ” Marcus said. BRITTANY GREESON Lightning electrifies the sky over the Main Aveune bridge in Fargo, N.D. on Monday, July 21, 2014. NICK WAGNERROTC cadets of the third and fourth regiments do what they can to stay clean while they are at Tactical Training Base Pickett, in Fort Knox, Ky. Because there are not any real bathrooms at any of the tent complexes, cadets have to shave, brush their teeth, etc., in the midst of hundreds of cadets. HARRISON HILL

This week, we present WKU senior Demetrius Freeman’s photo essay he created while studying abroad at the Danish School of Media and Journalism last spring as part of our ongoing series entitled Focus On, which highlights some of the extraordinary talent coming out of the photojournalism program at Western Kentucky University.

 Train Ride to the End of the World: Hoyerswerda

During the time of the GDR, Hoyerswerda was a powerful, fast-growing industrial town in the Saxony state of eastern Germany. Glass factories, coal mining, and power plants provided thousands of jobs forcing the demand for housing to dramatically rise in a short period of time. Hoyerswerda was a model city of the east increasing the population from 24,549 in 1960, to 34,095 in 1963, to 53,472 in 1968. The peak was reached in 1981 when the population hit 72,000 people. Thousands of apartment complexes were built in order to meet the demand.

In 1990, with the end of the GDR and the reunification of Germany, the economy was reorganized causing thousands of jobs to disappear. Power plants reduced staff, factories closed, and buildings emptied as people moved west for better opportunities.

With the loss of these jobs, Hoyerswerda began shrinking at a rapid rate, as more and more people moved to bigger cities like Berlin and Dresden for better opportunities. The population average age rose as the students and young people left the city. Hoyerswerda was left with empty factories, businesses, streets, and thousands of empty apartments. The fear is not only of Hoyerswerda shrinking, but fear for the future existence of the city itself.

An old restaurant on the outskirts of town that has been transformed into a home. All the surrounding apartments have been demolished.

An old painting of Mickey Mouse inside of what used to be a family home. When the factory shut down the residences moved leaving the neighborhood abandoned.

Paint peeling from the wall of an empty apartment complex. The apartment was filled with families and workers from the glass factory but when it closed everyone moved to other places leaving the small community empty.

The last building structure that stands on the outskirts of town. This building has on tenant and is scheduled to be demolished.

An empty desk inside of the old glass factory outside of Hoyerswerda.

Abandoned mining quarry.

Broken glass from an abandoned home across the street from the closed down glass factory. When the factory closed the neighborhood emptied as everyone migrated to Dresden and Berlin for better job opportunities.

A paper cutout sits in the window of a home in a next to Hoyerswerda. The village is scheduled to be demolished so that the mining company, Vattenfall, can begin mining coal where the village stands.The company has built a duplicate town 6 miles from the original town.

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NPPA: What lead you to this story?

DF: Some years ago I read an article about Detroit, and it’s issues with job loss and a fast-shrinking population. Reading the article made me ask, is this issue happening in other places, if so why, and more importantly, could the survival of a city be based solely on the economic diversity of the city? Is this the beginning of a new society issue that will hurt smaller cities, towns, etc.? Will we all migrate to bigger cities? All of these thoughts crossed my mind and I began researching where this was happening in the world other than Detriot. If Detroit the extreme case, was it economic based? More questions meant more research. Then I came across a New York Times Article from 2009 about Hoyerswerda, Germany. The article explained the issue of shrinking populations, the aging community, and the lost of jobs, but visually I had no idea what these places were like. So I decided that once I returned to Europe I was going to do a photo story there.

NPPA: What story are you trying to tell with these images?

DF: The goal of these images is to provide a photographic landscape of Hoyerswerda and the feeling of isolation, destruction, and emptiness.

NPPA: What has been the most rewarding part of the story for you?

DF: Personally, working on this story has really made me open my eyes to other cultures, languages, and has made me more aware that there are issues that need a voice everywhere. This project made me fear what could happen, embrace what did happen, and sympathize with people with a level of understanding that was gained through listening and asking. Having the opportunity to focus on a single project for a longer period of time was such a joy to me. At first I was nervous because I have never worked on something for a long period of time, but as the story went on I felt that I connected on a deeper level than just the surface. The most rewarding would have to be  the relationships I established. I met some awesome people in Hoy who showed interest in who I was and allowed me to explore their world and tell me part of their story.

NPPA: What was the most challenging part?

DF: This project made me step out of my comfort zone, which is an extremely challenging thing to do. I traveled to a place I had never been before, where most people do not speak English, where Neo Nazis have a strong presence, and where seeing a dark-skinned person is a very rare sight. While in Hoyerswerda I was confronted by a Neo Nazi advocate who spoke strong words about “Hail Hitler and Only Whites should be on the earth.” This was the first time I had ever had a direct verbal racism attack, which made me feel out of place for a moment but because I did my research and found a fixer, she was able to defuse the situation. This encounter was a reminder that racism still remained and that I must continue forward and not let such things harm who I am.

NPPA: What has been the most important thing you have learned?

DF: The experience I gained from working on Train Ride to the End of the World: Hoyerswerda has been very rewarding for me both professionally and personally. Professionally I have become an overall better journalist. Though I took photographs, the most important and time-consuming moments were during researching, planning, and interviewing. I learned how to look at and analyze the research material to find my angle. I learned how to plan for a trip, scheduling my time with several subjects within a day, and I learned the importance of having a fixer. This has given me confidence in traveling to places where the culture and the language is different. I also learned how to communicate better during interviews, allowing the subject to speak freely gave more details and important information that also makes them feel a part of the project and thus gives it a better result.

Photographically, I have gained the confidences and trust in my skills, the ability to tell a story in a different form than linear, and a stronger ability to show meaning in a photograph that is normally done with text. I learned how to adjust my visual style to fit with the dominating material and how to collaborate and be more open minded about photo selection.

This project taught me more about myself and helped me learn and overcome new challenges while creating lasting memories and relationships. Experiences is what I live for so I encourage others to take that chance, buy that ticket and go explore. Thanks! -DF