Oswego Alumni Magazine » photography

New photography minor develops appeal across disciplines

Jeff Rea — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:14:07 +0000

The art department this fall rolled out a new minor in photography that offers a 21-credit focus to a popular medium among students.

“For students majoring in journalism and graphic design, in particular, this allows them to list the minor on their résumés,” said Cynthia Clabough, art department professor and chair. “So even though they could have done all this study before, it allows an employer or graduate school to see they were focused and dedicated.”

Clabough said alumni working in photography throughout the region helped motivate the creation of a photo minor.

“The distinction gives the students just that little extra bit of confidence they may need, and certainly gives the employers more confidence, too,” she said.

The photo minor is the latest among a number of minors related to the art department that have strong interdisciplinary interest and cooperation: arts management, museum studies, expressive art therapy and audio design and production.

“So this is in that tradition,” Clabough said. “We don’t always call these courses interdisciplinary, but it does show cooperation. That interdepartmental, inter-area cooperation, we do well here at Oswego. That’s key. It’s key to what our departments have been willing to invest in.”

Alumna Shares Photos of Chimps

Michele Reed — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:28:58 +0000

Chimpanzees are a lot like humans, sharing 98 percent of the same DNA and many personality traits. That fact was in evidence in a special multimedia presentation on campus in February by wife-and-husband photography and video team Kristin Mosher ’89 and Bill Wallauer.

For 15 years, Bill followed the wild chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, capturing the intimate details of their daily lives for the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), which is led by renowned primatologist and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall.

Psychology major Nikki Packard ’11, left, talks with the wife-and-husband team of Kristin Mosher ’89, center, a much-published wildlife photographer, and Bill Wallauer, videographer for the Jane Goodall Institute, Feb. 10 during a visit to Distinguished Service Professor Paul Voninski’s Anthropology 280 class in Mahar Hall.

He has videotaped chimpanzee births, dominance displays, infanticide attempts, encounters with snakes and “rain dances.” Much of his footage is unprecedented — including capturing a live birth on tape.

Kristin is a professional wildlife photographer and sound recordist. She previously worked as a Jane Goodall Institute staff member, and continues to partner with Bill on production work for JGI. The alumna’s photographic work has appeared in many publications, including National Geographic, BBC Wildlife Magazine and numerous books.

Currently, the couple is working on a three-year project with Disneynature documenting the behavior of chimpanzees for an upcoming major motion picture.

Faculty Hall of Fame: Helen Zakin

Michele Reed — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 15:28:53 +0000

Her career took her to the soaring cathedrals of Europe in search of medieval stained glass windows, but as a teacher, Professor Emerita of Art Helen Zakin was always more comfortable in the intimate seminar rooms of Tyler Hall.

“I always enjoyed working with students in small classes,” said Zakin, who especially liked teaching interdisciplinary courses in medieval studies for the Honors Program.

Professor Emerita of Art Helen Zakin

“In order to teach large classes, you have to be a bit of an actor or actress, a real performer,” Zakin said. She preferred the interaction of working with students one-on-one, where she could see who needed extra help, or draw in those whose attention wandered.

It’s a type of care she experienced from her dissertation adviser at Syracuse University, medieval art historian Meredith Lillich. Although there was no e-mail in the mid-1970s, Lillich would send copious handwritten notes by post while traveling all over the world. Since joining the Oswego faculty in 1970, Zakin had many female role models, ranging from Presidents Virginia L. Radley and Deborah F. Stanley to former Vice President Patti Peterson and Professors Marilynn Smiley and Rosemarie Imhoff. She tried to pass that mentorship on to students and to other faculty members in her work as department chair from 2002 to 2007.

While she doesn’t enjoy the impersonal nature of teaching online, Zakin says the Internet has opened a world of possibilities for the art historian. “At the Pierrepont Morgan Library online, you can get into the manuscripts, page after page,” she says. “You can see the [stained] glass in Shropshire Cathedral, panel by panel.”

But for Zakin, nothing compares to traveling the world, studying art in its own setting. A noted expert on medieval stained glass, she is a member of the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, a prestigious international organization that catalogs stained glass. Throughout her 40-year career, she visited hundreds of cathedrals and museums, and attended conferences or presented papers
in most countries in Europe. Her 2001 book catalogued French stained glass in American Midwestern collections. In 1992, she spent six weeks researching the stained glass holdings of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. With her husband of 40 years, ceramicist and Oswego Art Professor Emeritus Richard Zakin, she has traveled to Turkey, Spain, Italy, Poland and France among other European nations, as well as the United States.

While traveling, she took photos to share with her Oswego classes. In Pisa, Italy, she photographed underdrawings for frescoes, revealed by World War II bomb damage.

For all her globe hopping, the St. Louis native has no desire to make her home anywhere but in Oswego, thanks to the area’s rich heritage. “There are layers and layers of history in this town that one could peel away, and that fascinates me,” she said, pointing to the city’s role in major historical movements like abolitionism and the Underground Railroad.

Since her retirement from the college in 2009, Zakin has kept busy exercising her mind and body with Spanish classes, reading, yoga and jogging. She volunteers for political campaigns and the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music. Her newest passion is gardening. Zakin, who received her bachelor of fine arts degree in studio art, still enjoys painting and photography.

She remains grateful for the opportunities she received at Oswego, her first and only faculty post, which she held for four decades. “There’s a certain intimacy about this place, I know I wouldn’t find anywhere else,” she said.

— Michele Reed