WKU alumnus Barry Gutierrez found himself standing in a field, crying and questioning his abilities during the 1996 Mountain Workshops in Campbellsville, Kentucky.

His coach had just dealt him a harsh critique that caught him off guard, not expecting to be challenged at that level. Gutierrez doubted whether he could make it in the professional world.

“It’s (Mountain Workshops) a very personal challenge about what you’re going to do as a photojournalist,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez said he had a “coming to Jesus” moment. From that moment on, he said he pushed himself to “give everything” to the craft.

“That day was the day that I became a photojournalist,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez graduated from WKU in 1999. Following his time at WKU, he went on to become a photojournalist for the Rocky Mountain News, where he, alongside the photo staff, won a Pulitzer in 2002 for their coverage of the Colorado wildfires.

“I ate, I breathed, I lived, I drank photojournalism,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez attributes photography to a “fulfillment of purpose” in his life. It remained something that continued to transpire positively — “a gift from God,” he called it, with faith playing an important role in his personal and photojournalistic life.

David LaBelle, a longtime coach and friend of the workshop, acted as a mentor for Gutierrez as he explored his faith alongside photography. LaBelle emphasised the importance of feeling the moment you’re capturing, whether exciting or devastating.

“I’m not taking pictures of people in their worst moments,” Gutierrez said. “I’m experiencing those moments with them.”

Mountain Workshops is a photo, video and picture editing workshop through the WKU Visual Journalism and Photography program. Tim Broekema, the production director of the workshop and a photojournalism professor at WKU, said that students get the opportunity to immerse themselves in a rural environment and explore their passion for visual storytelling.

“I want them to take away a passion for the business, a passion for what it is they want to do in life — whatever that might be,” Broekema said.

Gutierrez said the workshop pushes participants to their limits, forcing them to wake up at dawn — if not earlier — and tell the story of another person’s life. He would sometimes take catnaps under the tables in the headquarters during sparse free time.

“You can sleep in the rest of your life, but (the) workshop is a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Jonathan Newton, one of the first lab staff directors and longtime coach.

Participants are also faced with emotionally vulnerable situations throughout the workshop. Part of the process of photojournalism is building trust with a subject so that they feel comfortable enough to share their story, which can present uncomfortable situations that participants must learn to navigate.

“You’re watching this human emotion, this raw moment, happen in front of you, and you can’t help but to cry,” Gutierrez said.

Newton, a retired photojournalist who has worked at publications like the Washington Post, found gratification in coaching photojournalists who were finding their way through the craft, telling himself that “he’s been in their shoes.” He said that photography is not an “external thing,” it all relies on the photographer’s vision and how they relate to the world.

“You have to build up their confidence and let them know that they can do this,” Newton said.

Amid the anxiety and unknown, participants find a sense of connection and discovery that, Newton said, makes the experience worth it. Participants find themselves laughing together, crying together and living together over the course of a week, building bonds that remain to this day — even after 50 years.

“You really meet people on a personal level,” Newton said. “You see how they work, you see how they handle pressure (and) you see if they’re a decent person — especially under stressful situations.”

The workshop celebrated its 50th anniversary this year in Maysville, Kentucky, where participants drew their subject contacts out of a container. Coaches worked alongside the participants daily to help improve their work and provide guidance.

“It’s (Maysville) just built on a ton of history, and I thought Maysville would be a great place to do it (the workshop),” Broekema said.

Broekema has been diving into the archives of the workshop for the past 10 years during his spare time, uncovering its history. Each community involved with the workshop had its “own little world,” Broekema said. This uniqueness was especially prevalent prior to social media due to the isolation.

“To make it to 50 and to never miss anything — I think that’s a great achievement,” Broekema said. “Not only for Western and for the workshop and for the people that make this happen every year, but just for the belief in visual storytelling.”

The workshop has had to keep pace with time throughout its 50-year life as new technology developed and as communities changed. Broekema said he sees the workshop leading a “technological edge.” In 2002, Mountain Workshops began shooting digital while most other workshops were still using film, Broekema said.

Joe Weiss, a past workshop staffer under Broekema, developed “sound slides,” a software for creating audio slideshows, for the workshop in 2005. He locked himself in a room and came out five days later with a functional code, Broekema said. It went on to become an industry standard for some time.

“We were building the wheel before the wheel was built,” Broekema said.

Newton, Broekema and Gutierrez, among others, consistently call the workshop community a “family.” The sense of community is built on a foundation of “blood, sweat and tears,” Newton said.

They also recalled how emotional moments happened all throughout the week, from building relationships, facing failure in the field, to laughing with one another. Newton still recalled, 27 years later, a time when he and Broekema had to fix plumbing issues in the workshop’s dark room to stop sewage from coming up out of the floor.

“It’s those things that you overcome,” Newton said. “There’s obstacles everywhere.”

The workshop always ends with a get-together where everyone can process the week and unwind after five days of action. Participants further their relationship with professionals through simple conversation, all while turning the page on another year of the workshop.

A workshop book is also created after every workshop, compiling stories of a rural landscape through the lens of a camera. Broekema recalled how he gave his grandmother, Gertrude Post, the book every year for Christmas — starting when she was around 80.

Following the death of Post’s husband, she moved multiple times until she settled into a nursing home. Her vision was declining, losing the ability to read. Broekema’s parents told him his grandmother loved the pictures because she could understand and connect to the stories.

“She loved just looking at pictures of people living their everyday life, and she carried them with her all the way through to the end because they became important to her,” Broekema said.

Post passed away at 96 years old. When Broekema’s parents cleaned out her last place, they found every Mountain Workshops book she had ever received from him. Broekema said it’s the connection that people find to a photo that makes it so important.

“This, to me, is what the Mountain Workshop is,” Broekema said.