I recently spent a week at the Missouri Photo Workshop creating videos about the photographers and editors from around the world who annually descend on one small Missouri town. Most of the videos from the week are now posted online. They range from short documentaries to conversations on the state of photojournalism to whatever strange things came up in the midst of a stressful, sleepless week.

Special thanks and credit goes to the other photographers on the multimedia team: Parker Miles Blohm, Tatiana Fernandez and Nick Michael.

CoMo Cyclocross Film

After taking a camera to the new CoMo Cyclocross league last month, I recently returned to try and make a 60-second film on one of the stranger branches of the bike racing world. Enjoy. 

CoMo Cyclocross from Benjamin Zack on Vimeo.

Missouri River

Last weekend, I met up with some friends on the Missouri River. As the sun went down, a group of folks and a handful of dogs piled into a boat and headed up river to play around on the islands. I brought along the camera and here are the photos.

Como CycloCross

Last week marked the start of a new CycloCross series in Columbia. For twenty minutes each week, riders race and jump hurdles in one of the strangest sports on two wheels. Each race involves riders trying to complete as many laps as possible on a compressed course. Riders also have to clear obstacles where they must carry their bikes. The sport is rumored to have started as a winter race where cyclists could keep up their practice in poor weather.

American Next

For the past week, the Columbia Missourian has been publishing "American Next," a series of stories on what the American Dream now means to young adults around Missouri. I had the honor of photographing one of the stories on the Mabin family from Springfield, a story of the classic stereotype of the American Dream coming true. That story is featured in today's print addition of the Missourian and is available online here.

Sean Mabin and his daughter Naomi celebrate their win over Naomi's brother's Isaiah and Kylan in the new game that the family bought that day. Wednesday afternoons and Sundays are Sean's days off.

Harrisburg, Missouri

After spending a stretch of this spring in Harrisburg, Missouri, I put together an essay on life in the small mid-Missouri town. If you haven't seen them already, you can view the collection here on my website.

You can find additional photos from Harrisburg on my blog, including more photos from the Harrisburg Elementary School's bike rodeo and Freeman Taxidermy. I've also included a few of the photos below that I enjoyed but didn't make it into the final project or earlier blog posts. Enjoy.

Fire Follow-up

After spending the first half of the summer with limited internet connection...I'm back. First up on photos from the last couple months is a quick follow-up on some of the prescribed fire photos from earlier in the year. If you followed the blog in the spring, there were photos from numerous fires around mid-Missouri (Like here, here, and here.) I checked back in on one of those burned areas in the Baskett Wildlife Area near Ashland and shot the photo below. The image was made within a few feet from the photograph that was shot just seconds after the fire passed.

 

This was shot from a slightly different angle, but it gives an idea of the intensity of the fire in the area now covered in wildflowers.